GARGOYLES  AND  OTHER  POEMS 


GARGOYLES 

And  Other  Poems 

HOWARD  MUMFORD  JONES 


THE  CORNHILL  COMPANY 

BOSTON 


Copyright,  1918 

by 
THE   CORNHILL  COMPANY 


TO  MY  WIFE 


40219 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Acknowledgment  for  permission  to  republish  the  following  poems  in 
book  form  is  accorded  the  publishers. 

AT  THE  DUNES 

Numbers  I-IV  appeared  in  The  Forum,  August,  1916 
Number  V  appeared  in  Poetry,  December,  1916 

HIS  MOTHER 

Appeared  in  The  Texas  Review,  April,  1917 

UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 

Aphrodite  and  The  Professor  Muses  appeared  in  Poetry,  April,  1916 

Librarians  and  Phonology  appeared  in  The  Midland  Magazine,  July 
1917 

Term  Paper  in  English  37,  under  the  name,  Chaucer  and  Cressid,  ap 
peared  in  The  Texas  Review,  February,  1917 

"Heu  Amor!  Quam  Dulcis  in  Universitatibus  est  Tua  Memoria," 
"Each  Student  is  Assigned  to  an  Adviser,"  and  To  a  Certain  Scien 
tist  appeared  in  Reedy's  Mirror  in  June,  1918. 

The  six  sonnets  in  this  section  are  to  appear  in  Contemporary  Verse. 

CHICAGO 

Plows  appeared  in  The  Survey,  in  the  fall  of  1914 

The  Hones  was  printed  in  A  Little  Book  of  Local  Verse  (see  From  the 

Mississippi) 

Audiences  appeared  in  The  Playbook  in  1914 
Economics  appeared  in  The  American  Magazine  in  1913 

A  SONG  OF  BUTTE 

Is  to  appear  in  Contemporary  Verse. 

FROM  THE  MISSISSIPPI 

Most  of  the  poems  under  this  head  appeared  in  a  privately-printed 

booklet,  A  Little  Book  of  Local  Verse. 
The  Masque  of  Marsh  and  River  appeared  at  the  time  of  the  production 

of  the  masque 
The  Garden  in  September  appeared  in  The  Midland  Magazine,  March, 

1916 

GARGOYLES 

With  the  exception  of  numbers  XII  and  XIV,  these  poems  appeared  in 
Contemporary  Verse,  December,  1916 


Between  the  bud  and  the  blown  flower 
Youth  talked  with  joy  and  grief  an  hour, 

With  footless  joy  and  wingless  grief 

And  twin-born  faith  and  disbelief 
Who  share  the  seasons  to  devour; 

And  long  ere  these  made  up  their  sheaf 
Felt  the  winds  round  him  shake  and  shower 

The  rose-red  and  the  blood-red  leaf, 
Delight  whose  germ  grew  never  grain, 
And  passion  dyed  in  its  own  pain. 

Then  he  stood  up,  and  trod  to  dust 
Fear  and  desire,  mistrust  and  trust, 

And  dreams  of  bitter  sleep  and  sweet, 

And  bound  for  sandals  on  his  feet 
Knowledge  and  patience  of  what  must 

And  what  things  may  be,  in  the  heat 
And  cold  of  years  that  rot  and  rust 

And  alter;  and  his  spirit's  meat 
Was  freedom,  and  his  staff  was  wrought 
Of  strength,  and  his  cloak  woven  of  thought. 

Swinburne,  Prelude  of  Songs  Before  Sunrise 


CONTENTS 

AT  THE  DUNES  PAGE 

I.  First  Impressions 3 

II.  At  Miller  ....  5 

III.  Night 7 

IV.  Dawn 8 

V.  November 10 

HIS  MOTHER          13 

UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 

Aphrodite 22 

Librarians 25 

The  Professor  Muses 27 

Phonology 30 

Term  Paper  in  English  37          33 

'Lo!  I  have  worshiped  beauty  all  my  days" 38 

| This  is  the  crown  they  sought,  the  height  they  won"        ...  39 

'O  wild  and  free  upon  the  lawless  hills"         40 

'Master  of  arts!   Diploma  tight  in  hand" 41 

'We  study  Marlowe.   Virgins,  not  unwise" 42 

'A  rag  of  sunset  flaps  my  window-pane" 43 

'Heu  Amor!   Quam  Dulcis  in  Universitatibus  est  Tua  Memorial"  44 

'Each  Student  is  Assigned  to  an  Adviser" 47 

To  a  Certain  Scientist 49 

CHICAGO 

In  Factory  Town 51 

On  Seeing  Lorado  Taft's  "  The  Solitude  of  the  Soul"    ....  53 

Plows         54 

The  Wrecking  of  the  House 54 

The  Movies          55 

The  Spinner          55 

Audiences 57 

Economics 57 

Insomnia         60 

THE  MECHANIST 62 

DEAD  CHILDREN G3 

ENIGMA 64 

A  SONG  OF  BUTTE 65 

[ix] 


CONTENTS 


FROM  THE  MISSISSIPPI  PAGE 

At  Eagle  Bluff 67 

Certain  Reflections  at  Midway 69 

"  When  shall  we  together " 71 

From  Trempealeau 73 

Sunday 74 

Railway  Sketches 75 

Anent  the  Street-Car 78 

"Climb  up  with  me  to  Cliff  wood  and  lie  down" 80 

June 81 

Lyrics  from  "  The  Masque  of  Marsh  and  River  " 83 

Rain  on  the  River 86 

A  Red  Leaf 87 

The  Garden  in  September          88 

Old  Men          .      .      .  ^ 90 

"Deep  within  a  coulie" 91 

An  Abandoned  Cemetery 92 

GARGOYLES 

I.  Prelude 95 

II.  Fantasia 96 

III.  Nocturne 97 

IV.  Immortality 98 

V.  Grotesque 99 

VI.  Theme  and  Variations         99 

VII.  Fresco 100 

VIII.  Motto         101 

IX.  Hamlet          102 

X.  Arabesque 103 

XI.  Fugue  Solonelle 104 

XII.  Interlude 105 

XIII.  Dialectics         106 

XIV.  Marche  107 

XV.  Allegory 108 


GARGOYLES 


AT  THE   DUNES 


FIRST  IMPRESSIONS 

Beyond  the  trouble  of  the  street, 

Beyond  the  weary  town 
An  eager  wind  goes  forth  to  meet 

The  dunes  and  beaches  brown, 
To  walk  by  blue  and  lonely  miles 

Wild  and  alone  and  free — 
Here  where  the  ghost  of  summer  smiles 

Across  the  autumn  sea. 

By  leagues  the  curving  headlands  wheel, 

By  miles  the  beaches  run, 
Grotesque  beneath  a  sky  of  steel, 

Barren  beneath  the  sun, 
And  bleached  like  dry  and  whitened  bones 

The  fisher-houses  stand 
Like  bulwarks  or  like  antique  stones, 

More  lonely  than  the  land. 

Before,  the  blue  lake  shameless  lies, 

Naked  and  gross  and  bare, 
As  some  Titanian  siren  tries 

To  lure  men  to  her  lair; 
Behind,  the  bleak  hills  writhe  and  twist 

In  obscure  agony 
As  though  God  had  each  by  the  wrist 

And  each  strove  to  be  free. 
[3] 


GARGOYLES 


And  here  the  stricken  sand  is  thrown 

Forward  and  back  and  forth, 
And  here  before  the  winds  are  blown 

The  great  dunes  south  or  north; 
They  have  nor  sleep  nor  rest  nor  ease, 

They  march  incessantly 
Now  lakeward  from  the  twisted  trees, 

Now  shoreward  from  the  sea. 


AT  THE  DUNES 


II 

AT  MILLER 

To  Miller  on  a  Sunday  comes 

Each  fellow  with  his  girl, 
Deaf  to  the  town's  incessant  drums 

And  piccolo's  shrill  whirl; 
Her  escort  bears  the  lunch  she  takes 

And  each  girl  giggles  loud 
To  hear  the  jokes  her  fellow  makes 

Upon  the  joyous  crowd. 

They  build  a  fire  upon  the  beach 

To  roast  their  wieners  by, 
They  toss  a  ball  from  each  to  each 

With  silly  shout  and  cry; 
The  plain  girls  read,  the  couples  stroll, 

The  men  race  on  the  sand, 
Or  trousers  to  the  knee  they  roll 

To  wade  a  rod  from  land. 

Impertinent  and  useless  things, 
They  eat  and  drink  and  shout 

Until  the  night  on  throbbing  wings 
Shakes  all  her  star-dust  out; 

Then  two  by  two  they  hurry  back 
Like  hens  to  catch  the  car, 

While  down  the  dead  day's  crimson  track 
Falters  the  evening  star. 

1*1 


GARGOYLES 


They  are  afraid  to  stand  alone 

Under  the  empty  sky; 
Back  to  the  town  they  herd,  and  drone 

Their  lives  away  and  die; 
They  huddle  back  to  town  in  fear, 

Fear  of  the  night  and  God  — 
It's  safer  where  the  streets  are  near, 

Than  where  His  feet  have  trod ! 

The  sun  goes  down,  the  stars  come  out 

Over  the  purple  sea, 
And  in  the  west  the  chimneys  spout 

Hell  forth  all  fiery, 
But  though  night  be  upon  the  wolds, 

And  hell  upon  the  sky, 
Impassively  the  lake  beholds, 

The  dunes,  impassively. 


AT  THE   DUNES 


III 
NIGHT 

And  now  the  utter  loneliness 

Is  more  than  man  can  bear: 
The  waves  are  sadder  than  distress, 

The  dunes  are  like  despair. 
The  lake  is  blank  and  pallid  gold 

Where  only  sea-gulls  dwell, 
Spirits  by  God  left  unenrolled 

In  heaven  and  earth  and  hell. 

Hard  on  the  brown  and  fading  sands 

The  teeth  of  crumbled  waves 
Bite  out  their  stories  of  old  lands 

And  peoples  in  their  graves; 
Above  the  sun  is  dead,  below 

God  and  the  world  are  dead, 
And  only  the  leaden  waters  go 

Across  their  leaden  bed. 

And  slowly  from  the  ashen  air 
Shudders  the  paling  light, 
And  slowly  up  the  sky  doth  fare 
The  stark  and  naked  night, 
Night  of  the  mad  and  staring  stars, 

Night  beyond  time  or  space, 
Void,  vacant,  blank  as  prison  bars, 
Night,  without  form  or  face! 
[7] 


GARGOYLES 


IV 
DAWN 

Not  always  are  the  dunes  as  bare, 

As  lone,  as  lost  as  this: 
When  morning  winnows  all  the  air 

With  driven  gold,  the  kiss 
Of  the  cool  wave  on  the  lit  beach 

Softens  the  great,  gaunt  land 
And  gently  the  little  waves  have  speech 

With  the  bleak,  barren  sand. 

Then  in  the  pink  and  yellow  lake 

Along  the  golden  shore 
The  white  mermaidens'  bosoms  break 

Red  ripples  on  the  floor 
Of  the  smooth  sea,  and  faint  and  far 

Their  wild  song  swells  and  sighs 
Across  the  beach,  across  the  bar 

Under  the  shifting  skies. 

And  fitfully  and  reluctantly 

A  lone  leaf  tiptoes  down 
Across  the  sands  into  the  sea 

To  float,  all  curled  and  brown, 
A  fairy  shallop  on  the  deep 

Wherein  two  pixies  ride; 
Their  little  wizened  faces  peep 

Over  the  frigate's  side. 
[8] 


AT  THE  DUNES 


Then  dance  on  every  wrinkled  dune 

Sandmen  and  brownies  small; 
The  dry  leaves  keep  a  rustling  tune, 

The  sleepy  birds  do  call, 
And  from  the  poplars  and  the  pines 

Dryads  and  nymphs  peep  out 
To  see  the  elves  in  quavering  lines 

Advance  and  turn  about. 

The  mermaids  sing,  the  sandmen  pace 

A  jolly  rigadoon, 
The  pixies  steer  and  reef  and  race 

Beneath  a  waning  moon; 
The  little  stars  look  down  to  grin, 

The  moon  looks  down  to  sigh, 
And  longs  to  dance  and  prance  and  spin, 

Being  lonely  in  the  sky. 

And  then  a  sudden  shout  goes  forth, 

And  the  white  birds  come  out, 
A  cold  wind  hurries  from  the  north 

To  drive  the  stars  about, 
And  one  by  one  the  mermaids  sink, 

The  sandmen  steal  away, 
And  up  the  steep  sky's  eastern  brink 

Marches  the  awful  day. 


[9] 


GARGOYLES 


NOVEMBER 

The  dunes  are  graves  that  shift  and  dance, 

Showing  a  skeleton 
When  by  the  pushing  wind's  advance 

Their  coffin  is  undone, 
And  in  the  ribbed  and  bitter  sand 

A  murdered  tree  puts  out 
A  white  limb  like  a  ghastly  hand, 

A  dead  trunk  like  a  snout. 

The  dunes  are  ghosts  that  line  the  beach, 

Hidden  and  veiled  and  wild, 
Now  holding  silence  each  with  each, 

Now  lisping  like  a  child, 
And  to  their  speech  the  waves  reply, 

The  wind  and  the  low  waves, 
Whispering  and  wildly  wondering  why 

They  talk  of  ghosts  and  graves. 

They  are  as  graves,  they  are  as  ghosts, 

They  are  as  sphinxes  set 
For  umpires  on  these  desolate  coasts 

With  life  and  death  at  fret; 
Life  with  her  grass  and  juniper, 

Death  with  his  cloud  of  sand: 
She  strives  with  him  and  he  with  her 
Between  the  lake  and  land. 
[10] 


AT  THE  DUNES 


The  poplars  and  the  pines  are  hers, 

His  are  the  sands  and  wind; 
Sometimes  his  desperate  breathing  blurs 

The  air  till  she  grows  blind; 
With  crooked  hands  and  fingers  green 

She  clasps  the  dunes  to  kill  — 
And  always  the  troubled  waters  keen, 

Always  the  sea-gulls  shrill. — 

The  wind  is  fellow  once  with  Death, 

Storming  against  the  land; 
He  howls  across  the  hills,  his  breath 

Burdened  with  snow  and  sand; 
The  wind  is  fellow  once  with  Life, 

Sweeping  against  the  sea, 
Sweeping  across  the  waves  in  strife 

With  Death  for  enemy. 

Yet  life  and  death  and  land  and  lake, 

To  him  what  things  are  these? 
Whether  the  sand-dunes  shoreward  shake, 

Fleeing  the  broken  seas, 
Whether  the  water  be  as  glass 

Or  wild  beasts  without  chains, 
They  shift  and  change  and  scud  and  pass, 

Only  the  wind  remains! 

Only  the  wind!  —  The  dead  leaves  flee, 
Like  smoke  the  blue  lake  fades, 

The  hills  flow  down  into  the  sea, 
And  night  and  day  like  shades 
[11] 


GARGOYLES 


About  a  carried  lantern  run 

Jigging  alternately, 
And  star  and  moon  and  bolted  sun 

Slide  crazily  in  the  sky. 

0  God!   The  whole  world  like  the  dunes 

Dances  fantastic-wise 
Down  to  what  end,  before  what  tunes, 

Beneath  what  dancing  skies! 
And  blown  along  like  grains  of  sand 

Ourselves  must  whirl  and  flee 
Before  a  wind  across  the  land 

Into  what  open  sea! 


12] 


HIS  MOTHER 


The  first  shock  of  the  letter  that  she  had 

Was  like  a  sudden  sword-thrust  through  the  brain; 

Then  numbness,  melting  sharply  into  rain 

Of  hard  and  stormy  tears,  more  hard  than  sad; 

These  left  her  staring  as  a  man  gone  mad 

With  brutal  blows  will  sagely  wait  for  pain, 

Desiring  it,  yet  ever  and  again 

Shake  for  his  fear  that  pain  is  dreary  bad. 

Thereafter  she  arose  and  went  about 

Some  trivial  duty  of  the  house,  of  course. 

(A  mother  is  a  thing  past  finding  out !) 

But  always  as  she  swept,  some  voice  as  hoarse 

As  ocean  in  a  fog  where  blind  ships  run, 

Spoke  dumbly  in  her  heart,  "My  son!   My  son!" 


II 


He  wrote  her  that  he  loved  this  girl  and  sought 
To  take  her  for  his  wife.   She  glowed  to  sense 
Under  the  halting  words  his  reverence, 
The  wonder  for  the  woman  God  had  wrought 
And  the  white  beauty  of  her.   She  had  taught 
Something  like  this,  was  proud  to  have  him  fence 
His  love  around  with  awe  and  excellence, 
And  yet — O  patient  heart!  —  the  pain  he  brought! 

F  131 


GARGOYLES 


Her  only  son!  Almost  she  seemed  to  feel 

The  little  curling  fingers  on  her  breast, 

The  small,  weak  mouth,  the  helpless  limbs  and  feet 

Had  she  not  kept  his  underclothing  neat, 

And  cooked  his  morning  pancakes  while  he  dressed? 

And  now  —  and  now  —  why,  this  girl  dared  to  steal! 


Ill 


So  it  had  come  at  last,  this  dreaded  thing 

Long  taught  to  hide,  as  somewhere  in  each  man 

Death  sits  with  moveless  mouth,  a  little  span 

Forgot  and  hidden,  till  his  hour  shall  ring, 

And  the  mouth  move  and  speak.   She  felt  the  wing 

Of  strange,  familiar,  sudden  destiny  fan 

Her  blanching  cheek.   She  knew     .     .     .     And  yet  there 

ran 
Some  hours  ere  she  grasped  her  suffering. 

Some  hours  ere  her  mind  came  flooding  back 

In  a  great  washing  sea  of  bitterness: 

Her  George  —  the  hour  had  struck,  if  somewhat  slack; 

The  universal  clockwork  ticking  on 

Compelled  her  through  this  futile  dim  distress, 

And  would  be  ticking  when  her  son  was  gone. 


IV 


It  was  not  that  the  girl  was  bad  or  cheap; 
No,  she  was  kind  and  good  and  gently  raised, 
Better,  perhaps,  than  George.   Her  anger  blazed, 
Helpless  against  its  privilege  to  weep, 

[141 


HIS  MOTHER 


(They'd  think  it  fitting!)  where  she  longed  to  sweep 
The  Fact  and  God  and  George  in  one  huge  crazed 
Slow-tottering  crash,  while  the  stunned  earth,  amazed, 
Shrank  from  its  pivot  backward  down  the  deep ! 

Oh,  there  were  times  she  burned  to  face  the  Lord, 
In  cold  and  desperate  fury  ached  to  know 
Why  she  was  picked  for  this  fantastic  fun!   .  .  . 
And  then  a  cold  fear  like  a  numbing  blow 
Took  hold  of  her,  and  she  would  read  the  Word, 
Praying,  "Thy  will,  O  God,  Thy  will  be  done!" 


She  hoped  and  prayed  that  George  had  chosen  well; 
Herself  had  drained  love's  goblet  to  the  lees!     .     . 
Beside  a  dead  man  lying  down,  she  sees 
A  loveless  bride  to  whom  the  marriage  bell 
Was  little  other  than  a  marriage  knell; 
Whom  pride,  not  love,  thus  forced  upon  its  knees 
An  inward  loathing.     .     .     .     Everyone  agrees 
Her  wedlock  was  the  happiest  they  can  tell. 

And  when  he  died,  they  say  she  missed  him  much, 
Donned  meekly  then  her  widowhood  and  cried, 
None  guessing  at  the  reason.   Now  she  prayed, 
Prayed  that  the  bridegroom  and  the  happy  bride 
Be  counted  with  the  couples  love  had  made. 
In  praying  she  could  not  name  any  such. 


[15] 


GARGOYLES 


VI 


Sometimes  she  longed  to  have  the  marriage  done, 

Remembering  the  tumult  and  the  blur 

Of  her  own  heart,  the  quickened  pulse,  the  stir 

Of  leaping  sense,  of  body  and  soul  made  one. 

O  pitifully  weak  for  love  to  stun 

And  cripple  in  his  passionate  quest  they  were, 

With  all  the  soft  young  night  aflame  with  her, 

And  he  made  lord  of  star  and  moon  and  sun! 


Elsewhile  she  strove  against  the  gates  of  love 
To  break  them  down  with  terror,  wildly  pushed 
The  great  hand  backward  on  the  clock  of  life, 
Prayed,  wrote  him  once,  was  blamed;  for  all  her  strife, 
The  marching  brazen  hand  still  hourward  rushed, 
The  slow  gates  crushed  her  even  as  she  strove. 


VII 


To  her  the  house  seemed  very  empty  now, 
And  wearily  at  night  she  climbed  the  stair, 
Holding  her  lamp  against  the  darkness  there, 
And  half-afraid,  and  tired;  her  fine,  large  brow 
Looked  puzzled,  always,  and  her  friends  told  how, 
Since  George  had  got  engaged,  his  mother's  hair 
Was  grayer,  and  that  George  was  hardly  fair, 
And  how  her  body  bent  like  an  apple-bough. 


[16 


HIS  MOTHER 


But  she  rebuked  them  if  they  called  him  cruel, 
And  said  how  glad  she  was,  that  George  had  been 
Kind  to  his  mother  always,  and  a  jewel, 
And  she  was  proud  his  girl  was  such  a  queen.  — 
Yet  every  night  her  foot  upon  the  stair 
Dragged  slowlier  up  the  empty  darkness  there. 


VIII 

And  she  who  found  him,  shapeless,  by  a  star 
In  windy  spaces  where  the  dust  is  blown, 
Impalpable  and  thin,  that  being  strown 
On  earth,  takes  shape  and  breathes;  who  at  the  bar 
Of  death  looked  down  for  him;  who  was  the  jar 
Wherein  his  essence  mingled  with  her  own, 
The  tortured  door  that  opened  with  a  moan, 
The  crucifixion  and  the  fiery  car; 

Upon  another  woman  she  must  lay 

Through  him  that  anguish  and  the  rods  of  pain, 

Through  him  a  mother  must  resign  a  son 

Still  to  some  younger!     .     .     .     'Twas  eternal  play 

Of  cog  and  ratchet  meeting,  that  was  plain, 

Whose  hidden  millstones  grind  forever  on. 


IX 


She  raged  against  the  injustice  of  her  state, 
Thinking  how  willingly  this  only  son 
She  would  have  lost  were  battles  to  be  won, 
Or  God  had  need  of  such  —  O  gentler  fate! 

[17] 


GARGOYLES 


But  thus  to  pay  with  sterling  worth  for  plate,  — 

A  mouth,  a  flutter,  a  thing  of  twenty-one, 

A  silly,  giggling  girl  intent  on  fun, 

No,  no !   The  purchase  price  was  far  too  great. 

God  had  been  tricked  or  had  not  understood, 
The  books  were  falsified,  the  balance  pan 
Disordered  that  so  weighed  with  ribbons,  blood: 
A  sure  accountant  would  correct  his  error.  — 
Thus  in  her  bed  one  night,  while  darkness  ran 
In  long,  slow,  leaping  waves  of  shame  and  terror. 


X 


Her  mind  went  back  along  unfooted  ways 
By  many  a  grass-grown,  many  a  lonely  road 
To  that  far  field  where  love  had  his  abode 
And  one  fair  promise  ruled  the  singing  days; 
Her  heartbeat  quickened  to  dead  lovers'  praise, 
A  thin  cheek  faintly  burned,  and  old  tears  flowed 
To  feel  that  her  poor,  withered  lips  yet  glowed 
With  ghostly  kisses  and  one  whispered  phrase. 

Dim  pranks  of  girlhood  rash  and  very  sweet 
Incredibly  awoke — slight,  foolish  things: 
A  solemn  interchange  of  ruby  rings, 
A  dance,  a  furtive  walk.  —  Outside,  the  street 
Under  the  dawn  was  blank  and  very  still 
Till,  of  a  sudden,  birds  began  to  trill. 


18] 


HIS   MOTHER 


XI 


Well,  she  would  not  have  George  beloved  of  none, 

Would  not  object  or  hinder.   Who  was  she, 

A  poor,  old,  weary  woman,  to  disagree 

To  God's  desire  with  maid  and  woman's  son? 

Had  George  not  stinted  him  of  proper  fun 

To  buy  her  pretty  things?   And  after  tea 

Sat  with  her  often?   She  was  glad  to  see 

The  love  and  happiness  her  boy  had  won. 

Honestly  glad  —  'twas  time  to  wed  —  above 

All  else  would  not  be  selfish.   Thinking  this, 

Her  dry  throat  pained  her  much.     .     .     .     How    youth 

could  rob, 

And  hurt  and  burn  and  sting!  —  And  what  was  love? 
A  little  laughter  broken  by  a  kiss, 
A  little  kissing  broken  by  a  sob! 


XII 


The  girl  —  the  girl  was  coming !   Her  shrewd  eyes 
Where  hunger  had  been  levelled  into  pain, 
Like  springs  of  troubled  water  filled  again; 
O  youth,  the  pliant  willow,  may  despise 
Old  oaks  that  have  been  twisted  to  strange  guise 
By  blowing  winds  across  a  desolate  plain; 
To  alter  them  is  trouble  all  in  vain, 
And  youth  is  no  admirer  of  the  wise!     .     .     . 

[19] 


GARGOYLES 


She  felt  that  life  had  passed  her  in   a  dust 

With  noisy  trumpets  and  exultant  face, 

Leaving  her  stunned  and  out-of-date;  the  place 

Was  shabby  and  her  dresses  none  too  new, 

Her  ways  peculiar  ways  and  old.     .     .     .     She  must 

Think  of  some  things  a  girl  would  like  to  do.     .     .     . 


XIII 

Like  one  with  desperate  battle  worn  and  fain 
Of  rest  by  some  untroubled,  old-world  sea 
Where  no  ships  steer  but  always  on  the  lea 
Is  silence,  and  a  languor  in  the  brain, 
So,  moving  strangely  ever  and  again 
To  dusting,  sweeping,  baking  bread,  was  she : 
Meanwhile  her  spirit  worshiped  changelessly 
A  dim  arcanum  of  perpetual  pain. 

A  solemn  sorrow,  half  akin  to  joy 

Was  her  familiar  friend  that  knew  no  change; 

She  would  have  missed,  she  thought,  the  dreamy  grief, 

Wherein  her  beaten  spirit  found  relief, 

And  if  his  sweetheart  had  renounced  the  boy, 

She  could  not  feel  more  phantom-like  or  strange. 


XIV 

O  friend,  the  strange  ways  of  a  mother's  mind 
God  does  not  wholly  fathom,  nor  may  we : 
Behold  her  waiting  for  the  train  at  three, 
Waiting  for  George  —  and  her.   These  eyes  are  kind, 

[20] 


HIS  MOTHER 


Wistful  —  no  more  than  that  —  which  should  be  blind 
With  looking  on  at  hell's  high  revelry, 
And  this  old  body  that  you  smile  to  see 
Before  all  heaven  was  broken  like  a  rind. 

Yet  here  she  stands  expectant  for  a  train, 
Timid  and  tired,  yet  proud  unconquerably, 
Who  walked  in  darkness  bitter  hills  of  pain, 
And  saw  the  passion  of  Gethsemane, 
Who  saw  and  lived  and,  sheltered  from  the  rain, 
Waits  at  the  depot  for  the  train  at  three. 


121] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 

APHRODITE 

I  walked  among  the  gray- walled  buildings; 

The  city  girdles  them, 

And  distant  clamors 

Break  on  their  towers  as  the  sea 

Whirls  its  long  lines  of  sound  against  the  coast. 

Among  them  the  professors  walked, 

Stooping  men  with  glasses 

And  queerly  eager  feet; 

Some  wore  Van  Dyke  beards, 

And  on  some  the  hair  was  silvered; 

They  talked  very  rapidly,  and  all  were  laden 

With  many  books. 

From  hall  to  solemn  hall  the  students 

Streamed  in  black  lines, 

Youths  and  maidens  chatting  endlessly, 

Worn  women  with  drawn  mouths, 

And  dissatisfied  men; 

They  were  seeking  something, 

Seeking,  seeking, 

Seeking  they  knew  not  what. 

I,  too,  passed  with  them  into  a  building; 
It  was  crowded  with  students, 
And  they  seemed  in  the  dingy  light  of  the  hall 
Like  spectres  of  dead  youth. 

[22] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


The  walls  were  drab, 

The  bulletin  boards  by  the  offices 

And  the  ugly  chandeliers 

Looked  dusty  in  the  light, 

And  I  wondered  what  he  did  in  this  place, 

Struggling  through  the  narrow  panes, 

The  lord  of  life, 

The  eternal  sun. 

Suddenly  in  the  crowded  hall 

I  saw  her  walking  toward  me, 

The  matchless,  the  miraculous, 

The  divine  Aphrodite, 

And  around  her  the  students  swarmed, 

And  saw  her  not. 

Ah  Aphrodite! 

Her  body  in  the  crowded  way,  like  a  pillar  of  light, 

Shone  naked  and  beautiful, 

With  Parian  limbs  and  softly-moulded  bosom; 

Her  face  was  terrible, 

Sweet  and  swift  as  lightning  launched  at  midnight; 

Crushing  against  her  snowy  breasts  a  burden 

Of  crimson  roses,  blood  against  her  skin, 

One  arm  was  raised, 

And  from  her  hand,  her  divine  hand, 

She  scattered  roses, 

Red  roses, 

Crisp  flakes  of  kindling  fire. 

A  murmur  of  music 

Floated  about  her  head; 

Her  feet,  moving,  echoed  strangely  in  my  heart  — 

Eternal  singing; 

[23] 


GARGOYLES 


The  centuries  were  singing, 
The  golden-hearted  singers  of  the  world 
Were  singing  with  them 
Unutterable  songs. 

Ah  Aphrodite ! 

Thou  dead,  thou  deathless  goddess, 

Sprung  of  the  wind  and  the    wave    and    the    clean,    sweet 

foam! 

The  wild  songs  of  thy  moving  feet 
Choked  into  silence, 
And  I  heard  a  sob  arise 
As  of  a  string  plucked  ardently  and  breaking 
With  burden  unutterably  sweet, 
And  I  fell  before  thee, 
Before  thy  feet, 
O  deity, 

Thy  naked,  flame-like  feet, 
And  kissed  them, 

Passionately  kissed  them  while  the  roses 
Dripped  round  me  like  red  rain ! 

Ah  the  wild,  sweet,  unendurable  pain  of  the  roses, 
Sharp  and  bitter  and  fierce  as  flame-smitten  lips! 
Ah  the  eyes,  the  burning  lips,  the  bosom! 
Ah  Aphrodite!     .     .     . 

The  students  swarmed  again  about  me, 
Women  with  drawn  mouths, 
Dissatisfied  men, 
Seeking  something,  seeking, 
Seeking  they  knew  not  what. 


24] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


LIBRARIANS 

A  bare-walled  room;  a  counter  at  one  end; 
The  ages,  catalogued  and  ticketed 
On  neatly  printed  cards  of  black  and  red, 

Piled  up  in  cases,  down  the  floor  extend; 

Four  windows  shoulder  through  the  white-washed  walls, 
Whereby  the  sunlight  on  the  dusty  floor 
And  littered  tables  to  the  restless  door 

From  morn  to  night  perpetually  crawls. 

Above  the  desk,  implacable,  immune 

From  all  the  little  hates  which  stir  the  place, 
Sardonically  with  barren,  sphinx-like  face 

A  clock  beats  out  the  hours  from  noon  till  noon. 

No  rest  nor  respite  in  the  changing  room  — 
The  door  perpetually  swings  to  and  fro, 
Perpetually  the  students  come  and  go, 

Perpetually  the  clock  ticks  on  like  doom. 

Behind  the  desk  stand  the  librarians, 

Bleak  women,  spare  and  angular  and  thin, 
Impersonal  as  God  or  Death,  and  in 

Their  eyes  and  on  each  mask-like  countenance 

Sits  changeless  irony  to  watch  your  whim. 

You  ask  for  Shakespeare,  and  no  more,  no  less 

Than  if  an  equal  fervor  you  express 
For  something  dull  and  dead,  you  get  of  him. 

[25] 


GARGOYLES 


They  pile  the  centuries  like  building  blocks, 
And  nest  dead  Caesar  with  a  magazine; 
Indecently,  behind  an  office  screen 

They  watch  the  masters  numbered  up  like  stocks. 

Levelling  all  things  in  a  catalog, 

They  yield,  and  now  withhold,  imperial  kings 
From  any  giggling  girl  that  blithely  rings 

For  pilots  in  her  intellectual  fog. 

To  sport  with  dead  men  as  these  women  do  — 
Is  it  so  strange  they  look  a  little  mad? 
Is  it  so  strange  they  look  profoundly  sad, 

And  life  is  subtly  comic  to  their  view? 

They  look  above  the  foolish  ways  of  men, 
Cosmic  and  elemental  things;  their  eyes 
Inscrutably  are  old  and  very  wise. 

I  think  I  shall  behold  that  look  again. 

For  if,  being  dead,  I  walk  the  dead  men's  way 
Far  on  the  windy  prairies  of  the  night, 
And  suddenly  within  a  shaft  of  light 

I  meet  the  triune  Fates  who  watch  us  play, 

The  awful  faces  will  not  look  so  strange 

Of  those  with  lips  compressed  who  see  us  strain, 
Their  eyes  sardonic  with  a  world  of  pain, 

Contemptuous  of  the  little  rooms  we  range. 

Contemptuous  and  pitiful  of  man's 

Interminable  quest,  those  goddesses  — 

What  will  they  be  —  what  are  they  more  or  less 

Than  all  eternity's  librarians? 

[20] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


THE  PROFESSOR  MUSES 

(Physics  Lecture  Room  —  Before  Class) 

I  am  afraid,  O  Lord,  I  am  afraid!     .     .     . 

These  instruments  so  curiously  formed, 

This  dynamo  and  motor,  that  machine 

Cunning  to  grasp  and  hold  with  delicate  hands 

Your  chainless  lightnings.     .     .     .     Lord,  I  am  afraid 

Here  in  the  empty  silence  of  my  room! 

This  lecture  hall  is  oddly  like  a  mouth, 
Myself  the  tongue  in  it,  myself  the  voice 
Shrill,  thin,  across  these  empty  chairs  —  how  queer, 
How  skeleton-like  appear  these  empty  chairs! 
Blank  walls,  blank  platform  (ineffectual  things) 
And  bleak,  bare  windows  where  the  startled  day 
On  tiptoe  stands,  too  lovely  to  come  in.     .     .     . 
A  mouth  it  seems,  a  maw,  huge,  grim,  and  fated 
Some  day  to  close  and  crush  me! 

Lord,  Lord,  Lord 

Am  I  the  thing  the  daylight  falters  from, 
Spinning  my  dusty  web  of  dusty  words 
To  catch  the  plunging  star  we  call  the  world, 
Hanging  it  so  a  period?     O  fool, 
That  spider-like  weaves  cosmic  theories 
In  gossamer  nets  to  trap  the  universe, 
Spun  but  to  tear  a  thousand  tattered  ways 
And  hang  on  every  lilac  if  a  girl, 
A  red-lipped,  shallow,  care-free  Freshman  girl 
Laugh  at  the  sallies  of  a  boy! 

[27] 


GARGOYLES 


Afraid!     .     .     . 

Problems  of  sound  and  light,  of  light  and  sound, 
Experiments,  materials,  theories, 
The  laws  of  motion,  problems  of  sound  and  light, 
Problems  of  sound  and  light.     .     .     . 

And  presently 

A  gong  will  ring  here  like  a  doomsday  bell 
And  through  these  doors,  fresh  winds  that  shake  the  woods, 
Sons  of  the  wind  and  daughters  of  the  dawn, 
Eternal,  joyous,  unafraid  comes  youth, 
Youth  from  a  million  colored  realms  of  joy, 
Youth  storming  up  the  world  with  flying  hair 
And  laughter  like  a  rose-red  deluge  spilled 
Down  dawn-lit  heavens  burning  all  the  sea! 

Problems  of  light  and  sound!     .     .     .    Why,   what  care 

they, 

These  bright-eyed  Chloes  of  our  later  date 
For  theories  of  sound,  themselves  the  sound — 
Themselves  the  light  that  brightens  all  the  day? 

Round  every  corner  flits  a  flying  foot, 
Alluring  laughter  shaken  fancy-free 
In  silver  bells  that  break  upon  the  air.     .     .     . 
Evoe  —  evoe!   Pan  and  the  nymphs!   With  lips 
Parted  and  sparkling  eyes  the  young  men  follow, 
Follow  the  swift-foot,  laughter-loving  nymphs 
Whose  eye-lids  hold  the  world !   Problems  of  light, 
Problems  of  light  —  I  am  sick  of  light  and  sound! 

Youth  storming  up  the  world !  Hot,  eager  youth, 
Youth  with  a  question  ever  on  its  lips 

[28] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


Impatient  of  the  answer,  youth  with  eyes 

Implacable,  remorseless,  passionless, 

Crying,  "I  thirst  divinely  —  quench  my  thirst!" 

Crying,  "I  thirsted  and  ye  helped  me  not!" 

And  brushing  past  me!   Amperes,  dynamos, 

Questions  of  voltage,  coils,  transformers,  watts, 

Shall  these  things  touch  them,  teach  them  to  be  wise, 

Temperate,  noble?   Surely  greater  texts 

Lie  in  the  lips  and  laughter  of  young  girls 

Who  look  at  me  with  pity  scarce-concealed 

And  curious  wonder  —  me  the  dusty  spider, 

Spinning  my  ageless  web  in  this  bare  room, 

While  scarcely  do  their  eager  tongues  hold  off 

From  sparkling  speech.   O  Lord,  I  am  afraid! 

For  when  I  think  to  have  them,  they  elude  me, 

And  when  I  guess  it  not,  then  have  I  taught  — 

Teach  me,  O  Lord,  and  strengthen  me  —  Thou  knowest 

I  am  afraid  and  weak  I  am  afraid ! 


GARGOYLES 


PHONOLOGY 

Through  dusty  windows  streamed  the  sun 

Into  the  sombre  class-room; 

The  students  at  yellow  tables 

Sat  yawning,  half-asleep, 

And  behind  his  desk  in  partial  gloom 

The  learned  professor, 

His  face  a  ghastly  yellow  in  the  light, 

Droned  dully  through  his  lecture 

Of  Anglo-Saxon  phonology, 

The  rules  for  umlaut, 

The  sacred  laws  of  change; 

How  ae  breaks  into  ea  and  how  j 

Geminates  a  consonant.     .     .     . 

".     .     .     the  first  exemplified  in  'beahgifa,' 

Line  two,  word  two,  in  your  text 

Of  the  Battle  at  Brunanburh.     ..." 

"Beahgifa!" 
Ring-giver! 

Athelstan,  king  and  lord  of  earls, 
Athelstan  and  his  brother  also, 
Edmund  the  atheling, 
Battling  at  Brunanburh, 
Battling  with  Anlaf  for 
Crown  and  kingdom! 

I  saw  them  battling,  I  saw  other  battles 
Fought  by  the  wild,  gray  sea! 

[30] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


I  saw  the  mist  swirl  and  the  day-candle  rise 

Bloodless  out  of  the  icy  waters, 

The  lonely  ship-way! 

Against  the  crash  and  clang  of  billows  breaking 

I  heard  the  sword-play 

Of  warriors  battling, 

The  gnarr  of  battle-ax, 

Grind  of  steel 

By  the  gloomy  waves! 

I  heard  the  wild  scream  of  the  startled  sea-mew  rising, 

The  snap  of  broken  spears, 

The  crack  of  shields  of  linden-wood  shattering; 

And  dimly  in  the  mist 

Strode  forward 

Trampling  the  dead, 

Gigantic  warriors, 

Blood-red  from  wrist  to  shoulder,  shouting  grimly 

An  ancient  war-song! 

It  was  night. 

A  screaming  raven  made  the  stars  wink  with  his  wings, 

And  through  the  frore  moonlight 

Across  the  sea 

Rode  the  Valkyries, 

Daughters  of  Wodan, 

With  helmets  of  steel  and 

Glistening  byrnies 

On  coal-black  chargers 

The  fair  war-maidens 

Rode  from  the  slaughter-field, 

Swifter  than  song. 

Shouting  shrilly, 

[31] 


GARGOYLES 


Homeward  hastening 

Straight  o'er  the  whale-road, 

The  icy  waves. 

Down  from  each  saddle-bow  dangles  a  dead  man, 

Valhalla's  hero. 

Shrilly  their  song  flies 
Over  the  frosty  sea, 
Shrilly  they  scream 
Above  the  waves'  bellow. 

They  vanished,  the  wild  horses  and  the  wilder  maidens; 

A  raven  croaked  in  the  sky, 

The  wind  sang  mournfully  across 

The  shuddering  sea, 

And  once  in  the  heavens  the  hammer  of  Thor 

Sharply  split  the  thunder. 

But  below  the  sea  and  the  screaming  sea-mew, 

Below  the  shout  of  the  fierce  Valkyries, 

Below  the  war-songs  of  the  men, 

Below  the  sword-play 

I  heard  an  endless  sound,  a  dull,  dead  droning  — 

It  grew  distinct  again. 

It  was  the  learned  professor  plodding  on 

Through  the  sacred  laws  of  Grimm, 

Grammatical  change, 

And  the  mystic  virtues  of  h. 


32] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


TERM  PAPER  IN  ENGLISH  37* 

(Chaucer  and  Cressid) 

"  This  Diomede,  as  bokes  us  declare, 
Was  in  his  nedes  prest  and  corageous  " 

One  windless  afternoon  near  Acheron 

Came  Cressid  lightly  through  a  gray-green  field 

With  billowing  poppies  starred.   There  Chaucer  stood 

Hard  by  the  shadowy  river.   Where  she  passed 

Her  ankles  stirred  the  little  leaves  to  speak 

A  sibilant,  rustling  word  that  ran  before, 

And  Chaucer  heard  and  knew.   Him  Cressid  hailed 

As  unobtrusively  he  turned  away: 

"Ho!   Geoffrey  Chaucer  —  poet  Geoffrey  —  Dan! 

Sweet  sir,  sweet  bard,  O  sweetest  anything 

That  stays  your  feet.   What  —  not  discourteous? 

Nay,  look  not  sourly,  Dan.   Your  Alisoun 

May  scold  till  Time  runs  down  and  dies  of  her, 

But  I  —  I  thought  you  knew  me  better,  Geoffrey. 

Cressid's  no  gossip  out  of  Bath!   Be  friends  — 

You  liked  me  once  before  your  pious  cant 

And  thrifty  whine  of  '  Crist  foryeve  my  giltes, 

Endytinges  of  wordly  vanitees,' 

In  which  —  God  wot  —  you  counted  me.   Stuff,  straw, 

Stools  to  reach  heaven  on  and  save  yourself 

From  imminent  damnation.   Lies,  lies,  lies  — 

Else  how  were  you  set  with  me  in  this  field 

*  37.  Chaucer.  —  Rapid  reading  and  discussion  of  his  works.  Primarily 
for  graduate  students.  Prerequisite:  English  28.  Mj.  (Catalog  of  the  Col 
leges  and  Graduate  Schools). 

[33] 


GARGOYLES 


By  yonder  river  bound?  Hypocrisy 

Which  bought  you  favor  with  that  sickly  prude, 

Your  virtuous  Alcestis,  will  not  move 

The  boundaries  of  Orcus! 

" '  I  wol  biwayle 

The  harm  of  hem  that  stode  in  heigh  degree ! ' 
Yes  —  and  your  prioress  lisps  her  tale  in  heaven 
Until  the  ears  of  God  grow  sick  of  her, 
While  you,  her  poet,  virtuous  Geoffrey  Chaucer, 
That  wrote  her  down,  companion  me  in  hell, 
Me,  Geoffrey,  whom  you  helped  to  damn  with  speech 
Smoother  than  fawning  in  my  uncle's  mouth. 
(You  first,  that  devil  Shakespeare  afterward.) 
Nay,  do  not  smile  so. 

"Chaucer,  I'll  be  calm  — 
Cool  —  I  was  ever  cool.   You  called  me  so 
In  that  first  temple-meeting  and  the  last 
Sweet  night  when  Diomed  had  his  will  of  me. 
Sweet?   God,  how  sweet!   No  sanctimony,  Geoffrey! 
Are  we  not  garnered  to  the  thin-lipped  dead? 
No  prude  may  scorn  me  here.   Sweet,  sweet,  sweet,  sweet 
So  like  a  taunting  wren  I'll  prick  their  hate 
With  my  one  cry  of  Diomed,  my  sweet. 

"Was  ever  such  a  lad,  sir  poet?   Limbed 
Squarer  than  Troy  and  bastioned  with  great  arms 
Whose  muscle,  twisting  in  its  sun-brown  sheath, 
Half-seemed  the  snake  that  slew  Laokoon 
Long  after.   What  a  god  he  walked !   Why,  War 
Was  nought  to  Diomed  in  his  pride  of  bronze, 
And  lady  Venus  might  mistake  the  two, 
Deserting  Mars  his  bed.   No  puling  boy, 
No  carpet-knight  to  falter,  pale  and  swoon 

[34] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


Because  the  wind  blew  sea-ward,  was  not  east, 
Was  strong,  was  early,  was  not  early,  late  — 
Not  such  was  Diomed.  He  knew  the  way 
Men  woo  their  women,  and  my  heart  was  his 
When  first  he  met  me  riding  out  of  Troy. 

"You  smile?   What  letter?  —  Shame   on   you    and    shame! 

WThat  letter,  Geoffrey?     .     .     .     Geoffrey,  look  at  me  — 

My  golden  hair  yet  golden  in  the  dusk, 

My  lips,  my  eyes  —  why,  Helen  hated  them 

For  bending  Hector  to  a  woman's  boon, 

And  Paris,  —  nay,  that's  blabbing!   See  my  throat 

Still  snowy  in  the  gloom  that  slides  across 

This  sunless  meadow  —  breast  and  queenly  arm : 

My  eyes  —  you  called  them  clear.   Look,  Chaucer,  look 

Am  I  not  yet  angelically  fair? 

Could  such  a  woman  play  at  dice  with  faith? 

Besides,  you  called  me  virtuous.   Am  I 

Not  virtuous  still? 

"Ah,  Chaucer,  Master  Chaucer, 
You  have  known  women  in  your  day,  you  rogue! 
Cecilia  Chaumpayne!   Does  that  recall 
No  kisses  to  that  elvish  face  of  yours? 
And  your  release  from  her  ambiguous 
De  raptu  meo  —  now  you  wince  and  frown ! 
Well,  cry  you  quits.    If  you  may  change  your  wife, 
Your  shrew  Philippa  for  a  country  wench 
Fresh  as  spring  daisies  in  your  Kentish  fields, 
Might  I  not  change  for  better  coin  a  worse? 
Trade  a  foul  uncle  —  how  I  hated  him ! 
Faugh,  what  a  fool  I  was.    'And  would  I  dance 
And  was  his  mistress  here'  —  I,  day  by  day, 
Thus  dutifully  fawning  on  his  smile, 

[35] 


GARGOYLES 


His  senile  jests  and  whispering  lecherous, 
And  last,  that  crown  of  jests!   I  could  have  sunk 
These  fair,  white,  kissing  fingers  in  his  throat, 
And  did  not! 

"Dan,  why  should  I  be  forbid 
Between  a  manly  lover  and  a  boy 
To  make  a  woman's  choice?   My  uncle  Pandar, 
That  cousined  me  and  cheated  me  and  laughed, 
My  uncle  Pandar  being  Troilus'  friend, 
Who  would  not  quit  that  self-same  Troilus, 
Though  he  were  Mars  and  Launcelot  in  one? 
Might  I  not  right  mistakes?   Geoffrey,  they  were 
Strewn  in  my  life  like  pretty  maids  in  Greece, 
And  if  in  the  full  hey-day  bloom  of  spring 
I  played  a  while,  does  playing  time  forbid 
My  flinging  youth  aside  when  once  I  met 
Reality  in  love?   Such  law  were  shame! 

"Ah  yet  —  ah  heaven!  Ah  help  me,  Master  Chaucer! 

I  think  I  loved  him  once,  my  Troilus! 

He  was  so  princely  and  so  passionate, 

So  loving-timid  and  so  beautiful, 

And  love  in  him  was  like  a  lonely  flame 

Lighted  upon  a  secret  altar  stone 

That  else  had  known  no  worship. 

"Oh,  the  pain 

To  wander  in  these  olive  fields  and  know 
My  name  is  driven  forever  down  the  years 
Linked  with  light  loving  and  with  wantonness! 
Would  I  had  died  before  I  left  my  porch 
In  windy  Troy  —  before  my  father  fled, 
A  traitor,  to  the  Greeks!   O  noble  race, 
Father  and  child  and  uncle!     .     .     . 

[361 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


"You  smile  again 

But  now  your  smile  is  summer  through  the  snow. 
If  you  had  laughed  —  O  Troilus!  —  I  have  talked 
With  one  of  your  good  women,  though  less  good 
Than  I,  the  wanton  Cressida.   She  told 
Her  way  of  cheating  shame.   Had  I  been  wise! 
Sir  poet,  would  an  asp  not  look  as  well 
Upon  this  breast  as  hers?   You  turn? 

"God  grant 

Many  merry  hours  with  Cecilia, 
And  that  you  meet  not  with  your  shrewish  wife!" 


37] 


GARGOYLES 


Lo!   I  have  worshiped  beauty  all  my  days: 
The  stars  have  been  as  lovers  and  the  night, 
Fairer  than  thought.   Trees,  pictures,  music,  light, 
Old,  crumbling  sunsets  and  the  lilac  haze 
On  summer-shadowy  hills  —  these  were  a  maze 
Of  loveliness,  with  hushed  and  sandalled  feet 
To  wander,  pausing  where  a  brook  was  sweet, 
Or  in  lush  meadows  marvelling  to  gaze. 

And  I  have  known  high  battles  with  the  wind 

And  felt  the  mystic  tang  of  wet,  kissed  lips, 

And  prayed  at  dawn.   Alas!   That  these  should  pass! 

Lecturing  on  poets  to  a  college  class, 

Behold,  I  aid  the  Progress  of  the  Mind  — 

0  why  should  beauty  suffer  such  eclipse? 


[38] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


This  is  the  crown  they  sought,  the  height  they  won: 
After  long  years  of  travail,  weary  waits 
Through  the  dim  night  before  unopening  gates 
Of  joy;  or  in  waste  lands,  by  star  or  sun 
Closing  the  foolish  circle  they  had  run, 
To  seek  escape;  to  know  what  tragic  states 
The  mind  puts  on;  at  last,  slipped  by  the  fates, 
To  climb  the  rock-rim  toward  some  larger  sun; 

There  on  the  bleak  horns  of  the  mountain  scree 

To  seize  thin  harps  and  in  the  icy  moon 

To  strain  their  throats  and  sing !  —  This  is  their  fame, 

After  long  years:  grown  peaceable  and  tame, 

In  text-books  caught,  to  make  yon  fresh-faced  loon 

Yawn  o'er  his  reading  in  my  English  Three. 


[39 


GARGOYLES 


O  wild  and  free  upon  the  lawless  hills 
My  soul  is  up  against  the  embattled  hours! 
The  harping  of  the  stars  descends  in  showers 
Upon  me,  and  the  moon  her  music  spills. 
O  Sightless!   Dweller  by  the  shouting  rills 
And  planetary  rivers  what  impowers, 
Resistless,  thee  to  crown  me  with  thy  flowers, 
To  set  my  feet  upon  thy  golden  sills? 

Me  that  was  safe  amid  the  hollow  vales 
To  make  confederate  with  each  bird  that  flies, 
Each  wind  and  sun?   O  Power,  was  it  wise? 
The  stars  are  noisy  on  my  trembling  ears, 
Beneath  my  feet  the  golden  threshold  fails, 
Thy  hills  are  steep,  thy  flowers  too  rich  for  tears. 


[40 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


Master  of  arts!   Diploma  tight  in  hand, 
Hood  on  his  back  and  triumph  on  his  face, 
He  drops  benevolent  smiles  upon  the  place 
Which  taught  him  what  he  does  not  understand. 
His  arguments,  'tis  true,  have  nearly  spanned 
The  missing  plays  of  Ford,  the  date  and  case 
Of  Piers  the  Plowman,  Spenser's  birth,  the  race 
Of  Layamon.   He  knows.   His  air  is  bland. 

Master  of  arts  and  ignorant  of  all, 
He  climbs  another  archway  to  his  goal, 
The  doctorate.   His  eyes  are  bad,  his  soul 
Is  dubious,  but  his  mind  —  his  mind  is  good: 
Where  twenty  thousand  facts  are  piled  like  wood, 
Will  Shakespeare's  secret  lies  at  beck  and  call. 


[41] 


GARGOYLES 


We  study  Marlowe.   Virgins,  not  unwise, 

Some  thirty-seven,  seek  nay  lecture  room, 

Poise  pen  and  wait.   There's  none  but  wears  the  bloom 

And  signet  of  love's  April  in  her  eyes. 

Questioned,  their  voices  trill  me  out  replies 

Some  boy  should  have  'twixt  kisses.   Now  I  speak, 

Their  pens  record  the  wisdom  which  they  seek 

To  store  against  the  day  I  catechize. 

We  study  Marlowe,  (Beautiful  and  young 

Leander,  whom  divine  Musaeus  sung 

Dwelt  at  Abydos!),  comment  in  our  text 

On  style  and  influence,  skirt  the  unpleasant  edge 

Of  liberal  phrases,  shy  at  kisses,  hedge  — 

We  study  Marlowe.   We  do  Shakespeare  next. 


[42] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


A  rag  of  sunset  flaps  my  window  pane 

With  curious  insistence;  memoried  trees 

Stand  up  like  solemn  eastern  devotees; 

The  empty  campus  floods  with  purple  grain 

Behind  them  where  they  pray;  one  cloud  in  vain 

Threatens  the  moon,  on  dim  and  ghostly  seas 

Of  silent  weather  lost;  day's  emptied  lees, 

Spilled  through  the  west,  tinge  heaven  a  wine-red  stain. 

Papers  are  marked.   The  quarter's  past  and  done. 

Two  sparrows,  chattering,  are  very  loud 

Where  yesterday  I  heard  a  happy  crowd 

At  graduation.   Now  the  belated  sun 

Drops  swiftly,  and  the  vesper  air  is  bowed 

With  weight  of  growing  stars.   The  quarter's  done. 


[43] 


GARGOYLES 


"HEU  AMOR!  QUAM  DULCIS  IN  UNIVERSITATIBUS 
EST  TUA  MEMORIA!" 

I  am  weary  of  institutions! 

Huddling  together;  jostling  in  the  streets;  the  cutting  off  of 
all  that  is  not  symmetrical;  the  shoving  down  of  what 
does  not  conform; 

Rules,  customs,  police,  Y.  M.  C.  A.  workers,  armies,  generali 
ties,  mass,  books,  lectures,  colleges  —  of  these  I  am  very 
weary. 

Also  of  college  professors,  perturbedly  striving  to  fit  life  into 
patterns,  afraid  of  what  can  not  be  measured; 

Running  hurriedly  in  the  first  soft  rains  to  pin  labels  upon 
blades  of  grass  and  the  young  leaves; 

Dissatisfied  because  the  blades  grow;  complaining  that  the 
wind  drifts  among  the  roses  and  disorders  them : 

For  they  wish  to  number  the  petals  of  the  roses,  and 
the  careless  opulence  of  spring  will  not  allow  them;  they 
desire  to  pin  the  clouds  together  with  pins,  and  catch 
the  winds  in  springes  clumsily  set  for  them. 

Their  lives  are  measured  into  lines,  facts,  recitations,  theses, 
proofs,  and  what  does  not  agree  with  the  measure  is 
cast  aside. 

[44] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


They  have  made  their  measures  into  gods  to  whom  they  make 
human  sacrifice. 

I  say  that  life  is  not  a  thing  put  into  boxes  in  a  dark  room 
wherein  college  professors  go  up  and  down  desperately 
seeking  what  they  have  put  away:  it  is  their  own  souls 
they  have  put  away. 

The  soul  is  like  a  wild  bird  caught  in  the  net  of  the  fowler  — 
how  many  yards  is  it  long? 

The  eyes  of  children  haunt  me  with  grave  beauty;  the  wind 
cries  out  in  my  ear;  the  hair  of  a  woman  is  wrapped 
around  my  heart,  and  they  can  not  tell  me  why. 

I  am  very  wreary  of  them. 

Therefore  I  will  go  up  into  the  mountains  and  hide  my  face 
among  a  cloud  of  stars! 

I  will  talk  familiarly  with  the  moon,  my  brother,  and  with 
my  elder  brother,  the  wind. 

I  will  wander  for  a  time  under  the  cedar  trees  which  have  a 
certain  secret  thing  to  say  to  me :  I  think  it  concerns  my 
beloved; 

Or  I  will  lean  to  hear  the  talking  together  of  the  clouds. 

For  perchance  my  beloved  will  pass  by  along  the  stars, 
my  love  that  is  whiter  than  the  white  moon  for  beauty 
and  like  the  shining  of  the  early  stars. 

[45] 


GARGOYLES 


Her  breasts  are  like  clouds  with  the  moon  folded  among 
them;  her  hair  gives  forth  the  fragrance  of  the  cedars; 

She  has  rested  one  hand  upon  the  mane  of  the  Lion;  she  has 
trod  out  the  burning  of  Jupiter  with  her  feet. 

And  because  the  wind  is  a  harp  across  the  mountain  tops,  my 
beloved  and  I  will  kiss  and  cling  together  like  foolish 
children,  until  Orion  shall  laugh  to  see  our  love. 

The  Star  of  my  Desire  shines  above  the  mountain  tops;  I  will 
go  up  to  her  breast;  I  will  forget  utterly  the  professors 
and  their  measures. 

In  the  great  spaces  of  the  sky, 

Where  only  the  little  leaves  that  are  like  a  million  tongues 
can  see  us,  there  we  will  build  us  a  lodge  and  dwell  in  it 
together, 

A  lodge  of  sapphire;  of  jacynth  and  beryl  and  green  jade  and 
burning  gold. 

The  sill  of  the  doorway  shall  be  a  moonbeam;  the  rafters,  light 
ning;  the  windows  of  the  lodge  shall  be  stretched  dew; 
the  roof  of  the  house  of  my  beloved  will  I  nail  together 
with  stars. 

0  my  beloved,  the  winds  will  clap  their  hands  together  to 

see  us  two  go  into  the  house! 

1  am  weary  of  institutions!  —  Give  me,  0  God,  my  beloved 

and  my  desire ! 

[46] 


UNIVERSITY   SKETCHES 


"EACH  STUDENT  IS  ASSIGNED  TO  AN  ADVISER—" 

I  talked  yesterday  with  a  college  president  who  told  me  that 
his  advisory  system  was  a  good  one,  saving  the  stu 
dents  from  many  errors. 

He  explained  to  me  the  working  of  the  system :  how,  when  a 
student  did  not  know  whether  to  study  biology  or 
chemistry,  I  was  to  help  him  choose  between  biology 
and  chemistry.  .  .  . 

How  shall  I  know  whether  to  advise  for  chemistry  or  for 
biology? 

The  secret  wants  of  the  soul;  fugitive  and  furtive  demands; 
the  appetites  bridled  and  unbridled; 

Hunger  sweet  in  the  mouth  of  youth  for  what  is  perfect  and 
beautiful; 

How  shall  I  know  whether  biology  or  chemistry  satisfies  that 
hunger? 

One  finds  God  in  cyanide  of  potassium,  and  another  finds  Him 
in  Shelley,  and  sneers  because  he  has  found  Him  there; 

And  to  one  man  biology  is  the  mouthing  of  harlots,  laughter 
like  the  crackling  of  thorns  beneath  a  pot,  unmitigated 
and  obscene  laughter; 

[47] 


GARGOYLES 


But  his  brother  can  not  enter  the  laboratory  without  fear; 
he  could  kneel  down  before  a  bottle  of  prussic  acid  and 
worship,  except  that  he  is  ashamed;  his  eyes  are  dazzled; 
the  blast  furnace  is  like  the  choiring  of  a  million  angels, 
and  the  formula  for  magnesium,  terrible  as  an  army  with 
banners,  contains  the  glory  of  the  Lord. 

An,d  still  others  (and  I  suspect  my  freshmen  are  among  them) 
find  Him  in  the  kisses  of  young  girls;  they  dream  of  the 
breasts  of  virgins,  and  laugh  aloud  because  of  the  sweet 
ness  of  their  dream; 

One  man  I  know  found  the  glory  of  God  in  a  football  suit, 
and  another,  in  peddling  milk  to  earn  his  way  through 
college. 

I  think  I  will  go  back  and  tell  the  president  that  I  do  not 
know  how  to  advise  that  chemistry  or  biology  be  taken, 

Seeing  that  I  do  not  know  enough  to  advise  with  my  own  soul. 


[48] 


UNIVERSITY  SKETCHES 


TO  A  CERTAIN  SCIENTIST 

Come,  my  brother,  let  us  sit  down  and  reason  profitably 
together: 

To  you  the  soul  is  like  a  barracks  full  of  soldiers  in  red  coats, 
who,  if  they  could  only  be  got  to  drill  together,  would 
move  up  and  down  and  back  and  forth  in  companies 
and  squads  forever. 

But  I  say  to  you,  the  soul  is  no  such  thing. 
It  is  a  little  room  and  a  great  room. 

In  the  ante-chamber  there  are  perhaps  one  or  two  soldiers:  I 
do  not  know. 

But  the  great  room  beyond  is  like  a  deserted  chamber,  dusty 
and  vast,  with  cobwebs  hanging  from  the  walls  and  grey- 
ness  over  the  window-panes. 

It  is  haunted  by  ghosts  that  go  up  and  down  and  gibber 
together;  it  is  filled  with  bats  that  squeak  among  the 
rafters;  it  is  filled  full  of  faces,  music,  dreams, 

Deeds  done  and  deeds  undone;  kisses  that  were  given,  and 
kisses  —  O  mystery !  —  that  were  not  given. 

Companies  of  masks  go  about  in  it  continually;  they  dissolve 
and  fade  like  clouds,  and  there  are  always  masks  behind 
them,  and  behind  these,  still  other  masks. 

[49] 


GARGOYLES 


Or  the  soul  is  like  flowing  water  among  caverns :  who  can  dip 
up  a  goblet  of  that  water? 

It  is  a  kaleidoscope  of  sounds,  shapes,  desires,  lusts,  hungers, 
sins,  affections,  mysteries,  thoughts,  creeds,  appetites, 
all  jumbled  together  like  a  mirror  broken  into  many 
pieces. 

The  soul  is  not  known  to  any  man,  nor  is  it  known  to  God. 

Why,  my  brother,  do  you  not  see  through  the  door  of  the 
ante-chamber  into  the  mystery  beyond? 


[50] 


CHICAGO 

IN  FACTORY  TOWN 

What  service  is  this  in  Factory  Town? 

Four  cheap  candles  that  sputter  and  blink 

Over  a  pineboard  coffin;  an  altar 

Gilded  and  painted,  and  Mary  o'erhead 

Gazing  blankly  at  that  low  bed; 

Three  wooden  saints  who  nod  and  wink, 

Sardonic  and  silent  —  Mark,  Luke  and  John 

In  tinsel  and  crimson  looking  on, 

And  a  smug,  smooth  priest  with  his  psalter. 

They  leer  down  — 
Dumb  saints  —  on  a  funeral  in  Factory  Town. 

WThat  bumps  through  the  streets  in  Factory  Town? 

A  shabby  hearse  and  a  shabbier  horse 
And  one  hired  cab  comes  jolting  after; 
In  the  hearse  lies  the  coffin  that  holds  the  dead, 
And  wan  paper  roses,  white  and  red, 
(The  cab  was  got  for  the  priest,  of  course) 
And  round  them  the  people  traffic  and  trade, 
The  trolley  cars  clang  and  the  little  parade 
Moves  on  amid  clamor  and  laughter. 

Thus  goes  down 

The  funeral  procession  through  Factory  Town. 
[51] 


GARGOYLES 


And  what  place  is  this  in  Factory  Town? 

This  is  the  place  which  lodges  the  dead, 

A  bleak,  bare  lot  by  the  river, 

Where  wooden  crosses  push  out  of  the  sand 

To  guard  these  mounds  from  a  vandal  hand  — 

And  that's  a  new  grave,  and  prayers  are  said 

Hurriedly  by  the  priest,  and  dust 

Thrown  upon  that  which  was  more  than  dust, 

And  lives  (he  says)  forever. 

Lowered  down 
To  such  graves  are  bodies  in  Factory  Town. 

And  who  is  it's  dead  in  Factory  Town? 

Nobody's  dead  of  much  account, 

Only  Anna,  the  Croatian  maiden, 

Who  worked  for  Isaacs,  the  garment  man, 

Hard  and  fast  as  a  woman  can, 

And  she  died  of  consumption.   She  didn't  amount 

To  anything  much  ! —  too  stupid.    (She  came 

To  America  because  the  name 

Promised  relief  to  the  laden!)  — 

Don't  look  down, 
For  no  one  will  miss  her  in  Factory  Town. 

Well,  why  do  you  speak  of  Factory  Town? 

Only  for  this:  In  her  Croatian  home 
When  the  work  is  done  and  the  village 
Rests  in  the  evening,  the  peasants  sigh 
And  talk  of  Anna  enviously, 
And  say  that  by  now  she  must  be  some 

[52] 


CHICAGO 


Wealthy  lady,  all  done  with  toil. 

And  wish  they  were  she,  and  free  from  the  soil, 

And  through  with  the  tax  and  the  tillage! 

(They'll  come  down 
In  time,  to  be  buried  in  Factory  Town!) 


ON  SEEING  LORADO  TAFTS  "THE 
SOLITUDE  OF  THE  SOUL" 

Of  what  avail,  of  what  avail 

To  touch  with  hands,  to  touch  with  lips? 

Behold  our  faces,  they  are  pale, 

And  from  our  eyelids  slips  the  veil 

And  from  our  souls  the  covering  slips. 

Ye  are  alone  when  nearest  you 
A  figure  presses,  eyes  afire, 
A  mouth  that  drinks  of  honey-dew, 
A  face  to  shape  the  world  anew, 
A  spirit  flaming  with  desire. 

Ye  are  alone  and  soreliest  tried 
When  supple  youth  puts  manhood  on, 
And  this  sad  woman  by  his  side 
WTho  was,  but  is  not  now,  a  bride 
Kisses  and  finds  the  rapture  gone. 

And  what  avails  the  hands  ye  pressed? 
We  also  clasp  our  hands  in  stone, 
We,  too,  were  lovers  breast  to  breast  — 
Ah,  nearest  we  were  loneliest; 
Now  we  are  nearer,  being  alone. 
[53] 


GARGOYLES 


PLOWS 

There  were  a  thousand  men  in  the  factory; 

Some  sweltered  over  forges, 

Others  above  great  emory  wheels 

Sent  showers  of  sparks  flying. 

With  dirty  face  and  sweat-stained  shirt 

A  workman  passed  by  me  and  grinned; 

He  was  pulling  a  truck  piled  high  with  plow-shares. 

After  him  came  another  man, 

Naked  to  the  waist, 

And  on  his  grimy  skin  in  little  globules 

The  sweat  was  standing. 

The  roar  of  the  emery  wheels  deafened  me 

So  that  I  could  not  hear  what  the  manager  was  saying, 

But  later  in  the  office 

He  told  me  proudly 

That  his  factory  contained  the  latest  devices 

For  the  making  of  plows. 

THE  WRECKING  OF  THE  HOUSE 

I  passed  where  workmen  were  pulling  down  a  house. 

It  was  snowing, 

And  the  soft,  remorseful  flakes  like  penitent  kisses 

'•Sifted  into  the  staring  rooms, 

And  on  the  fire-place,  indecently  exposed, 

Clung  desperately 

As  a  woman  clings  to  an  indifferent  lover, 

Striving  to  reawaken  in  him 

The  passion  of  past  days. 

[54] 


CHICAGO 


The  bedrooms,  too,  were  visible, 
And  the  naked  playroom 
Where  the  patter  of  feet  had  changed 
To  noiseless  footfalls  of  snow. 

Well? 


THE  MOVIES 

They  sit  like  shadows  in  the  playhouse  dim 

Through  half  an  hour's  film  of  smiles  and  tears; 

They  watch  life  like  a  shadow  flow, 

That  can  not  speak,  but  only  walks  and  feels; 

One  thing  they  do  not  know: 

Within  the  darkened  playhouse  of  the  years, 

Themselves  like  moving  pictures  come  and  go 

Upon  the  film  of  Time  in  seven  reels 

For  entertainment  of  the  seraphim. 


THE  SPINNER 

Before  a  doorway  in  the  city  sat 
A  single  spinner  spinning  in  the  sun, 
And  in  her  eyes  I  looked.  .     .     . 

I  saw  the  toiling  women  of  the  world, 
I  heard  the  silly  laughter  of  young  girls, 
I  saw  the  sunken  breasts  of  motherhood, 
The  mumbling  mouths  of  cynical,  toothless  crones, 
Young  wives  with  weary  faces  and  wet  hair, 
And  painted  women  beckoning  men  on. 
[55] 


GARGOYLES 


I  saw  the  teeming  tenements, 

The  smothering  sweatshops  and  the  flimsy  lofts. 

I  smelled  the  smoke  of  ruthless  factories, 
I  heard  the  whirr  of  myriad  machines 
Droning  a  grim,  monotonous  cradle-song, 
And  to  the  power  of  that  moaning  song 
Ever  new  women  bowed  their  heads  and  slept, 
And  ever  purred  the  humming  grimlier  on. 

I  saw  the  bitter,  pale  economist 

Throw  down  his  book  and  hide  his  eyes  and  weep; 

I  saw  the  worker  in  the  settlement 

Pity  —  and  tire  —  and  grow  indifferent. 

I  saw  the  legislatures  trading  spoils, 
I  heard  the  preachers  preaching  useless  gods, 
I  entered  schools  disputing  o'er  dead  kings, 
I  saw  the  people  rushing  through  the  streets. 

And  then  I  heard  a  single  woman's  cry 
That  shivered  to  the  unseen,  stricken  stars 
And  slid  along  a  sunbeam  up  to  God. 

And  there  was  silence  in  the  restless  streets, 

And  silence  in  the  purring  factories, 

And  silence  in  the  crowded,  flimsy  lofts, 

And  only  the  relentless  shuddering  sea 

Moaned  and  crept 

A  little  nearer  to  the  restless  streets, 

A  little  nearer  to  the  factory  walls.     .     .     . 

A  little  nearer  to  the  tenements.     .     .     . 

Nay,  I  had  but  looked  into  the  eyes 
Of  one  lone  spinner  spinning  in  the  sun. 

[56] 


CHICAGO 


AUDIENCES 

Within,  the  dazzling  lights  are  hushed  and  low. 

The  music  sinks  to  a  faint  breathlessness; 

There  is  a  rustling  of  a  woman's  dress, 
A  child  cranes  forward,  listening;  row  on  row 
Of  strained,  exalted  faces  seem  to  glow 

Like  white  flames  in  the  dusk  with  sharp  distress, 

Beholding  Juliet  dead;  the  aching  press 
Of  pain  stabs  the  dry  throat  and  will  not  go. 

Without,  swung  in  illimitable  space, 

Across  the  soundless  stage  the  planet  runs; 
Gigantically  like  shadows  in  the  waste 

And  silence  of  the  night,  the  high  gods  lean, 
Shoulder  to  shoulder,  peering  on  the  scene 
Across  the  footlights  of  the  spinning  suns. 


ECONOMICS 

Dead! 

Dead  where  the  greasy  river  winds, 

Tainted  with  filth  that  a  factory  grinds 

Out  of  the  cattle  skins  — 

Dead! 

With  bleared  wide  eyes  and  swollen  hands 
And  hair  of  matted  slime, 
A  sneer  and  a  smile  on  his  weak-willed  face 
Like  one  who  had  conquered  Time 
[57] 


GARGOYLES 


And  wrested  the  Secret  in  far-off  lands 
From  Death  who  withheld  it  a  space, 
Dressed  in  coarse  shirt  and  tattered  coat  — 
Briefly,  that's  how  he  looked  afloat 
As  he  drifted  down  past  the  ships 
And  the  wondering  men  who  trod 
The  wharves  by  the  reeking  slips. 

"Who's  dead?"  "What's  happened?"   The  rumor  ran, 
"Only  a  common  working  man 
Floating  dead  in  the  stream. " 

Strange ! 

Didn't  he  know  of  the  freer  range 
The  century  gives  to  a  man? 
He  certainly  knew !   In  the  present  age 
Labor  and  Capital  and  Land 
Divide  the  returns,  hand  and  hand, 
And  his  wages  were  just  and  true, 
Tut  —  this  will  never  do  — 
Thus  no  economists  scheme! 
Didn't  he  know  we  are  happier 
(Proved  so  by  rule,  and  we  must  be) 
In  this  age  of  machinery? 

Ask  of  the  mocking  lips 

Which  know  the  answer  in  God ! 

Ask  him  there  as  he  grimly  lies 

Down  by  the  grimy  slips, 
[  Taunting  the  burning,  brazen  skies, 
;  Ask  if  his  life  was  any  lighter, 
}  Ask  if  his  toil  was  any  slighter 

Because  of  machinery. 

[58] 


CHICAGO 


Horribly,  horribly  dead, 

With  the  river  filth  on  his  head, 

Clammy  with  noisome  ooze  —  and  dead, 

Always  horribly,  horribly  dead! 

They  fear  him  now  who  hired  him  of  old, 

And  shrink  away  lest  the  swollen  lips 

Shriek  in  laughter  there  by  the  ships, 

Laughing  fearfully,  fearfully. 

Nay,  touch  him  not  lest  ye  shiver 

The  frail,  thin  walls  of  the  flesh  —  touch  not! 

Better  to  let  him  drift  and  rot, 

Better  to  let  him  find  a  spot 

Alone  beneath  the  sluggish  tide 

And  let  him  be  buried  the  way  he  died 

With  the  stream  for  a  winding  sheet. 

In  the  vaporous  marshes  let  him  rest 

In  the  grave  he  picked  and  chose. 

He  never  could  sleep  were  he  buried  where 

The  factory  whistle  blows 

And  the  plodding  line  of  toilers  goes 

To  grind  their  lives  out,  lest 

He  arise  to  work  in  the  dim,  dead  dawn 

And  fleet  like  a  vulture  across  the  lawn 

To  his  place  in  the  tannery  there.     .     .     . 

Let  him  be  buried  anywhere, 

Anywhere,  anywhere,  save 

Your  cemetery  he  shall  not  share  — 

God  will  pick  him  a  grave. 


[59] 


GARGOYLES 


INSOMNIA 

Long  silences,  interminably  long, 
Mixed  with  an  insane  shrilling  in  the  ears.     .     .     . 
Did  I  give  Nesmith.     .     .     .     what  a  fool  to  jump 
Because  a  window  shakes !   Drip,  drip,  drip,  drip  — 
The  night  has  funny  noises!   Did  I  give     .     .     . 
God!     What  if  hell  were  like  this!   In  the  drift 
Of  black  across  the  eyes  small  globes  of  light 
Irregularly  swing  like  crazy  ships  — 
I  wonder  why  they're  made  so.   Anyway 
These  the  tired  mind  must  calculate  and  note 
Whether  they  come  on  arcs,  or  leave  in  twos. 
Did  I  give  Nesmith  ord  —  Nesmith  be  damned !     . 
Somewhere  with  leering  fingers  sleep  looks  out 
Among  the  swaying  curtains  of  the  dark  — 
In  this  room  somewhere  —  somewhere.   Did  I  give 
Nesmith  the  order  for  that  cedar  deal?     .     .     . 
That  fat  clerk's  face  again!   Bang,  bang,  bang,  bang 
The  blood  beats  in  the  temples.   Counting  sheep, 
That's  a  cheap  lie  for  fools  —  they  turn  to  books, 
Fragments  of  conversation,  faces,  streets, 
Newspapers,  —  newspapers  —  Tribune     .     .     .     Did  I  give 
Nesmith  the  order  —  Hell,  of  course  I  did ! 
If  I  could  only  sleep !   I  used  to  sleep, 
Once  in  another  world.   It  isn't  fair 
To  take  away  my  sleep  here  in  the  dark! 
Let's  see,  that  cedar  order  went  to  Nesmith; 
Tomorrow  there's  that  Canada  affair 

First  thing,  then  Jenkins,  then  the  freight-bills,  then      .     .    . 
What's  the  best  way  to  calm  old  Jenkins  down? 

[60] 


CHICAGO 


I  hate  these  whiskered  chaps  like  Chester  Arthur, 

Think  they're  Beau  Brittels  —  Brimmel  —  Bram  —  oh  hell! 

Are  scrawny  bankers  always  made  so  tight? 

Crack! — That's  the  shutter — or  the  window  shade.     .     . 

The  first  car  leaves  at  three,  too.   I  could  sleep 

If  this  fool  nervousness  would  only  stop.     .     .     . 

Blood  in  your  ears  and  twitches  in  your  feet, 

And  silence  like  a  blanket  striped  with  light. 

Did  I  give  Nesmith?  —  Yes,  of  course  I  did. 

I  must  sleep  —  I  can't  stand  this,  I  must  sleep  — 

Must  sleep  —  must  —  must  —  must  —  must  —  must 


61] 


GARGOYLES 


THE  MECHANIST 

I  made  a  trap  to  catch  the  stars, 

And  built  machines  to  move  the  moon; 

The  wind  and  rain  I  caught  in  jars, 
And  counted  twelve  at  every  noon. 

Six  levers  were  for  night  and  day, 

And  six  for  twilight  and  for  dawn, 

But  when  I  tried  to  find  a  way 

Of  carving  roses  —  they  were  gone. 

Their  petals  blew  among  the  chains 

Whereby  I  caused  the  clouds  to  wheel, 
And  drifted,  like  still  scarlet  rains, 

Above  my  enginries  of  steel. 
I  brushed  them  off;  I  drew  my  lines 

About  the  wheatfields  and  the  corn, 
Shaping  my  vast,  extreme  designs 

To  ripen  them  ere  it  was  morn. 

And  while  my  subtle  pulleys  whirled 

Against  the  growth  that  would  be  day's, 
I  hurried  where  the  sea-streams  swirled 

On  incommunicable  ways; 
I  caught  them  in  a  net  at  dawn, 

And  then  returned  to  reap  my  corn  — 
A  snow  of  rose-leaves  hid  the  lawn, 

And  choked  my  crop  —  and  it  was  morn ! 


[62] 


DEAD  CHILDREN 


DEAD  CHILDREN 

I  meant  to  marry  you  until  She  came.     .     .     . 

Do  you  remember  what  we  talked  about? 

Women,  and  books,  and  how  your  eyes  would  flame 

At  sundown  as  a  lantern  flickers  out; 

I  said  your  soul  was  quiet,  like  a  song.     .     .     . 

We  planned  our  house.   Do  you  remember  how 

We  laughed  the  day  I  got  the  stairway  wrong? 

And  do  you  like  Circassian  walnut  now? 

You  spoke  of  children  we  should  have.   The  hours 

Stood  listening  and  your  whole  face  grew  sweet.     .     . 

What  are  they  now,  those  little  babes  of  ours, 

Dust  at  our  doorways  blown  along  the  street? 


63 


GARGOYLES 


ENIGMA 

I  said,  I  do  not  need  your  lips, 

The  raspberries  are  red, 
And  though  your  heart  is  wild  and  free, 

I  like  the  wind,  I  said. 

And  for  your  hair,  beside  the  road 
The  brown-eyed  Susan  grows; 

Your  kiss  I  think  I  can  replace 
With  some  neglected  rose. 

Your  soul  was  filled  with  peace,  and  yet 
One  noon  beside  a  stream 

That  loiters  through  a  clover  field, 
I  found  the  world  a  dream. 

I  said  I  did  not  need  your  love, 

Having  wind  and  flowers  and  skies; 

I  did  not  know  the  corn-flower  then 
Was  bluer  than  your  eyes. 


G4 


A  SONG  OF  BUTTE 


A  SONG  OF  BUTTE 

I  am  the  city  demoniac !   Desolate,  mournful,  infernal 
Dweller  apart  among  and  upon  the  amazing  hills, 
Seen  of  the  poet  of  hell,  I  am  she,  the  dark,  the  unvernal 
Cybele,  wearing  my  crown  of  fantastic  mines  and  mills! 
My  breasts  are  girdled  with  iron;  and  under  the  place  of  my 

feet 

Is  copper,  and  over  my  head  in  a  green  and  copper  sky 
A  sulphurous  sun  goes  by  and  I  find  his  going  sweet. 
My  sisters  have  many  jewels  —  is  any  so  strange  as  I? 

I  am  the  secret  of  night,  transformed  from  an  evil  thing 
To  a  dream  of  passionate  hope !   A  blur  and  cluster  of  stars, 
A  galley  of  tremulous  light,  I  lift  from  my  anchor  and  swing 
Outbound  for  the  farthest  ports  that  lie  past  the  lighthouse 

Mars! 

I  splinter  the  darkness  with  glory,  I  burn  like  fire  on  the  hills, 
I  am  Caerleon  and  Usk!   I  am  the  hurt  of  the  moon! 
Because  of  my  lonely  beauty  the  soul  takes  thought  and  fills 
Till  I  cause  the  pulse  to  leap  that  I  stayed  with  horror  at  noon. 

I  am  the  city  cast  out,  harlot  and  common  scold 
Shrilling  loud  in  the  street,  the  taunter  of  all  ye  love, 
Holding  what  others  scorn,  scorning  what  others  hold, 
Flaunting  the  vulgar  shame  my  sisters  are  reticent  of. 
I  am  the  mistress  of  many,  untrue  and  adulterous  queen, 
Naked,  tawdry,  Priapian!   Lo,  and  what  sin  is  mine? 
They  who  have  kissed  farewell  on  my  painted  lips,  have  seen 
My  sisters  are  hypocrite  souls  that  blush  for  their  lust  and 
wine. 

[65] 


GARGOYLES 


I  am  also  the  scoffer,  the  tester,  the  prover  of  life ! 
This  one  comes  to  me  pure  and  I  make  him  dirty  and  mean, 
This  one  comes  to  me  lewd,  and  forth  from  my  iron  strife 
Joyous  he  goes  and  proud,  and  clean  as  a  bride  is  clean ! 

0  sisters,  look  to  your  courts!   Can  ye  look  and  say  as  much? 
How  doth  it  stand  with  you?   Have  ye  builded  over  a  fen, 
That  your  white-faced,  pasty  brood  shrinks  back  from  my 

hurt  and  smutch? 

They  that  go  down  in  my  bowels  and  grip  me  are  not  as  your 
men! 

1  am  likewise  the  challenge,  the  mixing  of  many  in  one : 
Lustful,  reckless,  I  yield  to  the  urge  of  life  and  the  slack, 
A  myriad  races  come  and  beneath  my  dispassionate  sun 

I  mix  and  change  and  remold  and  send  them,  a  nation,  back; 
Indifferent  seeker  and  spurner,  I  lure  from  city  and  shore 
Italian,  negro  and  Slav.   Their  foster-mother  am  I! 
And  the  man-child  tugs  at  my  breast  and  is  nourished  and 

knows  no  more 
The  sound  of  an  alien  tongue  or  the  heat  of  a  foreign  sky! 

I  am  also  the  spirit,  the  city  chosen  of  God, 
Vast  and  pregnant  seeker,  aspirer  and  knower  of  dreams; 
I  that  search  in  the  earth  for  dross  go  also  abroad 
Rousing  my  sisters  that  sleep,  contented,  beside  their  streams. 
On  a  riddling  quest  I  go  as  the  ancient  mother  went  — 
My  sisters,  ye  look  ashamed  when  my  asking  footsteps  come, 
But  under  my  breast  I  bear  the  answer  the  Riddler  meant: 
I  am  Democracy's  mother!   O  sisters,  why  are  ye  dumb? 


[66] 


FROM  THE  MISSISSIPPI 
AT  EAGLE  BLUFF 

From  this  bold  rampart,  by  eternity 
Thrown  up  against  the  slow  assaults  of  change, 
The  valley  seems  unending;  stately,  slow, 
The  labyrinthine  river  winds  along 
The  horned  bases  of  the  solemn  hills; 
Stretches  of  prairie  lie  beyond;  the  fields 
Of  wheat  and  corn  for  some  enormous  game 
Form  intricate  patterns,  and  the  tiny  barns 
And  nestled  houses  counters  are,  and  pawns. 
A  marsh  lies  next,  a  bed  of  black  and  green, 
And  far  across,  the  blue  Wisconsin  hills 
Rim  up  the  valley's  edge. 

The  colors  change, 

Slow-shifting  back  and  forth  from  dark  to  light 
By  acres  and  by  miles.   It  is  the  clouds  — 
They  float  like  pageants  down  the  shimmering  sky, 
Huge  galleons  of  white  that  sail  and  sail 
An  infinite  ocean  under  cloudy  capes 
And  walled  and  misty  towns.     .     .     . 

Those  are  not  clouds, 

Those  ponderous  shapes  of  white!   They  are  the  gods, 
Born  on  their  catafalques  of  stainless  pride 
To  some  gigantic  grave  —  they  are  the  gods, 
The  ancient  gods,  now  mercifully  dead. 
[67] 


GARGOYLES 


They  did  not  think  to  die  as  they  desired, 

Weary  with  all  the  bitterness  of  heaven 

That  could  not  help  the  waywardness  of  fools; 

Weary  beside,  with  bitterness  of  life, 

Life  everlasting,  life  insatiate, 

Life  like  a  slow  fire  unescapable, 

Burdened  with  life  as  men  with  fear  of  death. 

Was  there  no  other  end  for  them,  with  all 
Their  thunders  and  their  priests  and  hecatombs, 
Thus,  thus  to  drift  in  death  before  the  wind, 
No  other  end,  O  unintelligible 
And  tongueless  gulf  of  air,  no  other  end? 

Lo!  The  white-armed,  the  sea-born  Aphrodite, 
Lo !   The  curled  brow  and  puzzled  frown  of  Zeus, 
Dead  Pallas  on  her  shield  —  O  Wisdom,  where, 
Where  is  thy  cunning  now?   And  now  Apollo 
Dead  on  his  bier,  and  yet  the  sun  still  shines. 

And  who  are  these  on  strange  and  carven  barges, 
Gigantic,  dim,  two-headed,  some  like  dogs 
And  some  like  eagles  —  Thoth  and  Ophois 
And  Isis  and  Osiris  —  they  are  dead, 
Despite  the  changeless  pyramids,  despite 
Karnak  and  Elephantis  and  the  sands 
That  blow  round  Memnon's  statue. 

Viking  ships 

Bear  after  them  the  raven-guarded  Odin, 
Thor  with  his  hammer,  Balder  and  the  Norns, 
Their  pyres  aflame  behind  them  where  the  sun 
Burns  like  a  death-ship. 

[68] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


These  are  almond-eyed 
And  many-armed,  or  brown  and  hideous, 
Wild  deities  that  to  our  western  ears 
Are  named  uncouthly  —  they  are  dead,  and  India 
Knows  not  nor  cares,  and  Ganges  through  his  leagues 
Flows  yet  untroubled,  and  the  Chinese  bells 
Ring,  and  the  lotos  blossoms  in  Japan. 

And  lastly  comes  a  crucifix  like  snow, 

And  one  upon  it  whiter  than  his  bier.     .     .     . 

The  gods  are  dead.     .     .     .     Only  the  wind  drives  on, 

Drives  them  before  it  as  a  flock  of  sheep. 

The  gods  are  dead;  where  are  the  gods?   O  seek, 

Seek  in  the  upper  chambers  of  the  world 

And  find  them  with  the  never-dying  wind. 

It  freshens  now  —  the  milk-white  barges  haste, 

Pass  and  dissolve  and  fall  in  summer  rain. 


CERTAIN  REFLECTIONS  AT  MIDWAY 

At  Midway  town,  at  Midway  town 
The  dust-white  road  goes  up  and  down, 
And  flashing  past  and  to  and  fro 
All  summer  long  the  autos  go. 

They  seldom  stop  at  Midway  town,  — 
The  place  is  small  and  dead  and  brown, 
A  store,  a  station  and  a  hall, 
A  dozen  houses  —  that  is  all. 

[69] 


GARGOYLES 


Tis  true,  the  meadows  are  as  fair 
At  Midway  town  as  anywhere, 
And  overhead  in  August  skies 
The  clouds  careen  like  argosies. 

The  black-eyed  Susans  by  the  way 
Curtsey  and  dance  there  every  day, 
And  from  the  wheatfields  joyously 
I  heard  the  black  birds  mock  at  me. 

Surely  at  Midway  one  can  feel 
At  night  the  cruising  planet  reel, 
And  see  in  heaven  the  milky  wake 
Of  star-dust  its  propellers  make. 

And  yet  —  and  yet  —  at  Midway  town 
The  silver  road  goes  up  and  down, 
And  flashing  past  and  to  and  fro 
All  summer  long  the  autos  go. 


[70 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


When  shall  we  together 

Tramp  beneath  the  sky, 
Thrusting  through  the  weather 
As  swimmers  strive  together, 
You  and  I? 

How  we  ranged  the  valleys, 
Panted  up  the  road, 

Sang  in  sudden  sallies 

Of  mirth  that  woke  the  valleys 
Where  we  strode! 

Glad  and  free  as  birds  are, 
Laughter  in  your  eyes, 
Wild  as  poets'  words  are, 
You  were  as  the  birds  are, 
Very  wise. 

Not  for  you  the  prison 

Of  the  stupid  town, 
When  the  winds  were  risen, 
You  went  forth  from  prison, 
You  went  down, 

Down  along  the  river, 
Dimpling  in  the  rain 

Where  the  poplars  shiver 

By  the  dancing  river, 
And  again 

[71] 


GARGOYLES 


Climbed  the  hills  behind  you 

When  the  rains  were  done; 
Only  God  could  find  you 
With  the  town  behind  you 
In  the  sun! 

Don't  you  hear  them  calling, 
Black  birds  in  the  grain, 
Silver  raindrops  falling 
Where  the  larks  are  calling 
You  in  vain? 

Comrade,  when  together 
Shall  we  tramp  again 

In  the  summer  weather, 

You  and  I  together, 
Now  as  then? 


72 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


FROM  TREMPEALEAU 

Below, 

The  slumbrous  flow 

Of  waters  laden  down  with  sleep 

Beneath  their  immortality. 

The  stream  goes  by 

Indifferently 

Unto  the  deep  — 

Men,  cities,  channel,  hills,  like  April  rains 

Vanish  —  the  stream  remains. 

These  solid  walls  that  seem  so  strong 

Were  not,  and  ere  long 

Will  not  be,  and  this  citadel 

Of  rock  is,  rightly  known, 

More  evanescent  than  a  song, 

More  fleeting  than  a  trumpet  blown, 

More  wraith-like  than  Time  flown.     .     . 

OGod, 

\Vhat  hope? 

Behold, 

The  little  scope, 

The  life  less  durable  than  sod, 

The  fingers  that  too  soon  grow  cold! 

The  stream  remains, 
Full-breasted  and  inscrutable, 
And  it  is  well. 

[73] 


GARGOYLES 


He  can  not  stop  His  ways  remote 

And  bow 

Because  an  ant  is  crushed  beneath  your  feet; 

His  ways  are  other  ways  than  ours 

Of  ampler  planets,  stranger  powers. 

Trouble  Him  not  now 

With  talk  of  pain 

Endured,  the  stricken  throat, 

Lovers  that  part, 

A  heart 

With  unintended  sorrow  bitter-sweet. 

Vex  not  the  Infinite  with  prattle  of  the  dust! 

He  must 

Be  busy  otherwhere;  when  we  are  slain, 

He  and  the  stream  remain. 


SUNDAY 

Your  Hell  and  Heaven,  what  are  they? 
I  tramp  the  yellow  road  today, 
And  deep  among  the  grass  I  see 
The  harebells'  fairy  blasphemy. 

They  blow  on  Sunday  as  they  blow 
On  any  day  in  all  the  row. 
Your  Hell  and  Heaven,  what  are  they? 
7  tramp  the  yellow  road  today. 


[74] 


FROM  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


RAILWAY  SKETCHES 


Bunk  Cars 

A  row  of  broken  box-cars  by  the  track 
Below  the  water-tower;  in  the  breeze 
A  torn,  blue  curtain  flaps  uneasily 
In  one  rough  window,  and  along  their  side 
A  line  of  garments  flutters  in  the  wind. 
The  blue  smoke,  rising,  dances  elfin-toed 
Upon  the  rusted  stove-pipe,  and  beyond 
The  great  white  sails  of  God  go  slowly  by 
Over  the  rustling  hills.     .     .     . 


II 

The  Section  Crew 

In  the  chill  wet  dawn  of  a  morning  in  the  fall 

When  a  gray  mist  lies  on  the  river, 
And  the  dew-drenched  lawn  is  shrouded  in  a  pall 

And  the  hooded  hills  seem  to  shiver, 
I  hear  the  squeak  and  the  rumble  of  a  door, 

And  voices  that  swell  and  echo  queerly, 
The  clatter  and  the  creak  of  a  car  lifted  o'er 

The  tracks  and  dropped  again  —  nearly. 
[751 


GARGOYLES 


There's  a  crash  of  tools  and  the  odor  of  a  pipe 

Astray  on  the  cool,  fresh  morning; 
Silence  —  while  the  pools  of  the  day  grow  ripe 

For  an  overflow  of  rain;  then  a  warning 
Called  from  the  boss,  and  the  tramp  of  awkward  feet, 

Stiff  and  chill  from  the  station; 
A  car  rolls  across  the  bridge  with  rhythmic  beat, 

And  the  hollow  places  boom  reverberation. 


Ill 

The  Depot 

It  nestles  underneath  the  dark  green  hills, 
A  doll-house  painted  red,  and  past  it  flies 
The  lean,  swift  limited  whose  whistle  shrills 
In  one  long  sobbing  shriek  and  slowly  dies. 

A  straw-like  arm  above  the  chimney  shifts, 
Staccato  clickings  puncture  the  still  air, 
A  thin  bell  jingles  faintly,  and  in  rifts 
Of  echoing  rock  two  crows  summon  to  prayer. 


76] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


IV 

An  Episode 

Drunken,  blear-eyed,  shambling,  sodden, 
Clothed  in  rags  and  greasy-hatted 
Comes  a  gray  old  man  with  dirty 
Iron-gray  hair  into  the  depot. 

At  the  door  he  stands  a  moment 

Staring  blankly  at  the  wood-stove; 
To  the  nearest  bench  he  lurches 
Where  he  sprawls  in  spineless  comfort. 

On  the  wall  a  fly-specked  placard: 

"Loafing  not  allowed."  The  agent 
Leaves  his  key  and  swearing  softly, 
Kicks  the  fellow  from  the  station. 


[77 


GARGOYLES 


ANENT  THE  STREET  CAR 

Street  car?   Yah!  —  Yellow  box  on  wheels 

That  bumps  and  reels 

From  Farnam  street  to  Main  and  back 

On  a  (sporadic)  double  track, 

Dusty  or  chilly  —  it  depends 

On  the  time  of  year,  and  say, 

They're  always  late  —  Lord!  Anyway, 

Don't  talk  street  car  here,  my  friends ! 

Perhaps.     .     .     . 

You  ought  to  sit  on  people's  laps, 
Or  kneel  against  the  pane,  your  nose 
The  farthest  angle  from  your  toes. 

Street  cars?   Chariots  that  run 
From  Zanzibar  to  Babylon 
Past  New  York  and  the  sapphire  bay 
Whereby  the  sultan's  daughters  play; 
Magic  steeds  of  gold  that  fly 
Where  polar  bears  and  lions  lie 
Hid  in  the  wild 

Somewhat  too  neatly  for  a  child; 
Enchanted  yellow  boats  that  swim 
A  hundred  miles  or  maybe  ten 
The  oceans  dim 
Where  funny  little  cities  stand 
Just  on  the  edges  of  the  land, 
All  ready  to  fall  in  (they  don't!) 
[78] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


And  full  of  funny  little  men 

Who  look  as  if  they'd  bite  —  and  won't; 

And  each  man  has  a  tiny  shop 

Beneath  the  tinkly  trees* 

All  full  of  gingerbread  and  pop, 

And  drums,  and  elephants,  and  carts, 

And  dolls,  and  candy  hearts, 

And  O,  such  shiny,  shiny  seas! 

Street  car?   Stop! 

Your  brains  need  dusting  —  try  to  sneeze ! 


(79] 


GARGOYLES 


Climb  up  with  me  to  Cliffwood  and  lie  down 
Full-length  upon  the  sunsoaked  turf,  your  eyes 
Raised  to  the  dazzling  blue  where  August  dies, 
Your  head  upon  your  arm  —  so !  —  and  the  town 
Behind  you,  while  its  troubled  noises  drown 
In  that  clear  gulf  of  air.     The  great  clouds  rise 
In  solemn  silence  up  the  summer  skies, 
And  autumn  somewhere  waits  in  russet  brown. 

Now  send  your  soul  through  yonder  rift  of  blue 
Among  those  drifting  islands  of  the  sky, 
Where  all  is  quietness.   Let  summer  die! 
What  care  we,  who  are  borne  on  radiant  wings 
Down  depthless  fields  of  hollow  air,  and  through 
The  stainless  splendor  which  the  summer  brings! 


[80] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


JUNE 

Between  the  sun-down  and  the  moon's  slow  rise 
There  came  a  spirit  down  the  vesper  skies 
Full  of  glad  sound  and  music,  and  with  feet 
Wild  and  sweet 

Upon  the  hushed  meadows,  and  her  hair 
Darker  than  midnight  air. 

She  came  with  singing,  and  her  voice  was  wild 
With  the  joy-hearted  laughter  of  a  child, 
Inmixed  with  tears  and  sudden  prophecies 
Of  lovelier  eyes 

Than  ever  yet  looked  meekly  on  this  earth 
At  love's  perpetual  birth. 

She  sang,  if  singing  be  to  give  full  throat 

To  all  shy  woodland  things  that  have  no  note 

Made  vocal  else  —  quaint  whispers  in  the  grass, 

Moods  that  pass 

Strangely  across  the  leaves,  and  old,  wise  words 

Gossiped  among  the  birds. 

Her  eyes  were  deep  and  clear  and  very  old, 
Lucent  with  starlight  and  with  liquid  gold, 
And  yet  a  shadow  brooding  there  to  screen 
Secrets  unseen, 

Fair  promises  of  womanhood  to  come, 
Now  sweetly  hid  and  dumb. 

[811 


GARGOYLES 


And  she  was  clad  in  delicate  shades  of  spring, 

The  tender  inward  of  a  rosebud's  wing, 

The  timid  baby  green  that  early  flushes 

In  emerald  blushes 

On  swelling  larch-leaves,  and  the  faint-breathed  pink 

Anemones  do  drink. 

Among  the  solemn-bearded,  counsellor  trees 
I  saw  her  dancing  with  a  summer  breeze, 
Her  slender,  snowy  feet  like  flashing  stars 
Across  the  bars 

And  jetty  shadows  of  the  vesper  wood, 
Willful  and  wild  in  mood. 

And  through  the  starlit  silences  her  singing, 
As  though  a  thousand  fairy  bells  were  ringing 
Like  little  liquid  fountains,  to  my  ear 
Sweet  and  clear, 

Melodiously  sweet  and  clear,  outrang, 
And  I  heard  what  she  sang. 

I  heard,  but  can  not  tell  you  what  she  sang, 

Save  that  the  ancient  meadows  swiftly  sprang 

To  melody  behind  her,  and  the  tongue 

Of  each  tree  rung 

In  laughter,  and  each  June-time  flower  that  swells 

Tinkled  like  elfin  bells. 

And  as  I  sprang  to  catch  her  and  discover 

Whether,  indeed,  some  wood  god  were  her  lover 

Who  thus  made  music  for  her  on  the  lawn, 

She  was  gone! 

And  I  alone,  and  all  the  woods  alone, 

Grew  silent  as  a  stone. 

[82] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


Perchance  she  fled  away  to  the  sunbeams, 

Or  in  the  secret  sources  of  the  streams 

Hides,  or  in  silver  fountains  of  the  air, 

Or  anywhere 

(Who  knows?)  unsearchable  beneath  the  moon, 

The  spirit  that  was  June ! 


LYRICS  FROM   "THE   MASQUE   OF  MARSH   AND 

RIVER" 

(Presented  at  La  Crosse,  Wisconsin,  June  8,  1915) 


I 
Song  of  the  Woodland  Voices 

Tonight  the  woods  have  tongue  again, 

Tonight  the  streams  are  free, 
And  all  the  world  grows  young  again, 

And  bird  and  leafy  tree, 
Hearing  the  old  runes  sung  again, 

Shall  join  —  shall  join 

Our  forest  minstrelsy ! 

II 

Sung  by  The  Spirit  of  June 

For  as  I  came 

By  river  and  hill, 

By  marsh  and  meadow, 
Soft  as  shadow 
I  touched  with  flame 
The  lips  that  were  still. 
[831 


GARGOYLES 


And  wind  and  shower, 
The  tongued  trees, 
The  dewy  grasses 
In  star-lit  passes, 
Anemones, 
And  the  blue  May-flower 

Came  trooping  after 
My  magic  feet. 

They  follow,  they  follow 
To  this  green  hollow 
With  whisperings  sweet 
And  shy  soft  laughter. 

Ill 

Song  of  Sunrise 

Rose  of  the  dawn  —  a  rose  in  the  sky, 

And  the  wide,  white  pool  is  a  shining  rose ! 

The  blushing  river  runs  dimpling  by, 
To  the  sea  it  flows, 
The  sea,  the  sea  that  is  all  one  rose! 

Rose  of  the  dawn  —  the  pale,  pearl  moon 
Crumbles  like  surf  on  a  rose-red  sea, 

And  the  ageing  stars  in  this  youth  of  noon, 

They  die  —  let  them  be ! 
For  youth,  for  youth  is  a  rose  like  the  sea! 

Rose  of  the  dawn  —  and  the  woods  are  stirred 
By  a  wind  from  the  rose-red  east  that  blows, 

Life  wakes  with  a  blush  at  the  waking  bird 

To  the  morn  that  blows 
To  the  love  in  life  that  is  all  one  rose! 

[84] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


IV 

The  Spirit  of  Sunrise 

Ye  have  seen,  O  king,  in  our  dance  this  thing: 

The  fleet  of  the  silver  stars, 
They  sink  before  me  in  a  crimson  sea, 

Struck  down  by  my  sunrise  bars; 
The  winds  go  forth,  east,  south  and  north 

And  west,  led  by  desire 
Of  the  trembling  clouds,  those  palpitant  shrouds, 

Whose  hearts  are  a  nest  of  fire. 

Now  springs  new  birth  on  the  waking  earth 

Where  the  winds,  my  couriers,  run, 
And  the  trees  and  flowers,  as  by  vernal  showers, 

Are  renewed  and  glad  of  the  sun. 
On  the  gray  hillsides  my  glory  slides 

Swift,  swift  from  crest  to  plain, 
WThere  the  kindling  river  leaps  down  a-quiver 

To  mix  with  the  crimson  main. 

The  river  awakes  as  the  sunlight  shakes 

To  the  waves  its  thousand  lances; 
From  emerald  high  land  and  splendid  island 

The  golden  radiance  glances! 
O  King,  by  the  might  of  dawn  over  night, 

By  June,  your  dearest  of  daughters, 
By  your  own  fair  fame,  O  call  him  by  name, 

Mississippi,  the  monarch  of  waters! 


85 


GARGOYLES 


RAIN  ON  THE  RIVER 

Rain  on  the  river!  And  dance,  dance,  dance, 

Bobbing  and  tripping 

And  sliding  and  slipping, 

One  little  leg  dipping 
Into  the  stream  where  a  drop  of  rain 

With  a  circular  stain 
Melts  on  the  river,  the  elf -men  prance! 

One  elf  to  a  drop, 

One  drop  to  an  elf  — 
Will  he  never  stop 

To  recover  himself? 

Nay! 

Plop  —  plop  —  plop 

In  the  early  morn 
The  quick  rain  rattles  and  patters  away! 

Who  could  stop 
With  such  an  orchestra  set  to  play 

Music  riddles 
And  fugues  that  chase 
Prom  top  to  bottom  and  back  again 
At  a  most  impossible  pace ! 
If  you  don't  believe  me,  listen  then  — 

To  the  hundred  drums 

As  small  as  your  thumbs 
Hid  just  under  the  river's  stop, 

Invisible  fiddles, 
A  tiny  horn, 
And  a  great  big  bullfrog  bass! 

[86] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


And  look  out  there  on  the  ballroom  floor 
Where  every  eddy  has  twenty  score 

Of  fairy  dancers 

And  goblin  prancers! 
Each  little  elf-man  whirls  like  a  top, 
In  a  mad,  mad  dance  they  jostle  and  prance, 

And  skip  and  flop 

And  slip  and  drop 

And  never  stop 

For  rest  or  breath  or  a  change  at  all 
In  this  incredible  carnival, 

This  maddest 
Gladdest 

Kind  of  a  ball!  - 

Let  them  rest  if  they  possible  can, 
They've  danced  on  the  river  since  day  began! 

A  RED  LEAF 

A  little  child  is  crying  in  the  wind, 
Yuhoo  she  sobs,  and  Yuhoo! 

I  have  seen  her  many  times: 

On  desolate  moorlands  and  bleak,  bare  hilltops, 

On  the  myriad,  pouting  lips  of  the  river, 

And  in  autumn  trees, 

A  tiny,  red-coated  girl 

Dancing  with  rage  and  crying: 

It  is  the  little  sister  of  the  wind. 

She  has  lost  her  doll  and  seeks  everywhere, 
Everywhere  in  the  world, 
Hunting  for  it, 
And  finds  it  not. 

[87] 


GARGOYLES 


THE  GARDEN  IN  SEPTEMBER 

Chill  drives  the  wind  across  this  lonely  space 

Sadder  beneath  the  sky  than  any  rain, 

And  wanly  now  the  ineffectual  sun 

Gleams,  and  the  pale  light  fades  and  leaves  no  stain, 

As  those  faint  ripples  on  the  pool  leave  none, 

As  wind  across  the  grasses  leaves  no  trace. 

The  bleached  astors  stare  with  mournful  eyes 
Upon  their  scrawny  stems  of  dying  leaves; 
The  stricken  peonies  droop  that  now  no  foot 
Goes  by  them  where  the  swaying  grape-vine  grieves, 
And  foliage  plants,  like  withered  beggars,  mute 
With  obscure  prayer,  beseech  the  autumn  skies. 

Against  the  eastern  wall  the  hollyhocks 

In  wild  confusion  of  a  wasted  dream 

Toss  vacantly  like  branches  in  a  wood, 

Or  bend  like  willows  slanting  toward  a  stream, 

And  over-ripe,  their  flowers  are  as  blood 

Clotted  and  dark  upon  their  yellow  stalks. 

And  all  around,  the  dank  discolored  wall 
With  crumbling  woodbine  laden,  and  below 
The  moss  grows  in  the  cracks  of  the  stained  walks, 
And  water  stands  where  tiles  are  sunken.   So 
All  things  are  dying  here,  where  only  stalks 
Of  old  flowers  toss,  and  dead  leaves  clash  and  fall.     . 

[88] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


O  beauty  over-ripe  and  to  disuse 
Fallen  in  this  supreme  and  strange  decay, 
Dying,  yet  never  dead!  When  shall  you  die, 
When  sleep,  O  grass,  O  flowers,  where  no  birds  stay, 
No  April  maidens  pass  and  dream,  whereby 
No  poets  mutter  at  the  world's  abuse? 

The  golden  girls  are  sleeping  a  strange  sleep, 
Some  with  the  lads  they  loved  and  more  alone, 
But  all  asleep,  too  worn  for  any  dream 
To  trouble  them,  too  tired  for  any  moan  — 
Out  of  the  air  I  heard,  or  else  the  scream 
Of  rubbing  branches  that  the  cedars  keep, 

Or  was  it  noise  of  grass  in  one  high  urn, 

Forever  troubled  by  the  keening  wind?  — 

The  garden  may  not  die,  though  lads  are  dead 

Who  walked  within  it,  loved  and  laughed  and  sinned 

The  lilies  trembled  in  the  lily  bed  — 

The  maidens  long  ago  have  ceased  to  yearn. 

Still  dance  the  shrivelled  astors  wearily, 
And  still  the  woodbine  mutters  to  the  grass, 
The  cedars  moan  like  one  gone  gently  mad 
And  can  not  sleep  or  die     ...     0  April  lass, 
Give  thanks,  with  joy  give  thanks,  0  laughing  Iad9 
That  you  are  other  than  these  flowers  be! 


GARGOYLES 


OLD  MEN 

The  stars  are  old,  old  men. 

It  is  very  cold  in  heaven, 

And  they  blink  and  huddle  closer  to  the  fire, 

Each  at  his  separate  hearthstone, 

And  mourn  for  the  good  old  times 

When  peace  and  friendship 

Were  everywhere  found  on  earth. 

Their  old  limbs  tremble, 

And  their  ancient  teeth 

Chatter  and  shake  in  the  cold. 

They  draw  their  ragged  blankets  over  their  heads, 

And  shout  across  the  inter-stellar  space 

That  it  is  very  cold  in  heaven, 

Very  cold! 

It  is  they  who  cause  the  winking  of  the  stars. 

The  old  men  tremble  so 

By  their  firesides 

That  their  bodies  shake  like  the  leaves  of  the  maple  in  autumn, 

And  the  light  shakes,  too, 

And  they  dance  before  it 

To  keep  warm, 

Or  shiver,  sitting  down, 

And  moan  for  the  good  old  times 

That  were  never  cold. 


[90] 


FROM  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


Deep  within  a  coulie 
An  apple-orchard  glows 
With  startling  gleams  of  yellow 
And  little  spots  of  rose. 

The  heavy  scent  of  summer 
Upon  the  valley  lies, 
The  smell  of  ripened  wheat-fields, 
The  warmth  of  stainless  skies. 

And  buried  in  the  clover 
Beneath  the  apple-trees 
A  lass  awaits  her  lover, 
A  robin  waits  the  breeze. 

The  breeze  will  come  by  sunset, 
She  hopes  the  lover  may.  — 
I  know  that  apple-orchard, 
He  will  not  come  today. 


t9l] 


GARGOYLES 


AN  ABANDONED  CEMETERY 

This  is  their  immortality  —  to  lie 
Among  these  fields  of  ripening  corn  and  rye, 
Here  where  the  tangled  shadows  of  old  trees 
Stain  the  rank  grass  and,  nodding  down  the  breeze, 
Huge  growths  of  fireweed  swarm  around  the  graves. 

Below  their  little  hill  the  slow  creek  laves 
Its  heap  of  pebbly  gravel  by  the  scar 
Of  raw,  red  clay  above,  and  with  a  jar 
Like  bells  of  music  breaking,  in  the  turn 
Shivers  against  the  boulders. 

Did  they  learn 

The  permanency  of  all  impermanent  things 
Because  the  brook  flows  and  the  black  bird  sings 
And  weeds  grow  tall  —  tansy  and  cockle-burr 
And  burdock  —  where  the  spire  and  altar  were? 
For  look  —  the  shameless  woodbine  climbs  and  sprawls 
Along  the  broken  stones  of  crumbling  walls, 
And  sapling  birches  quiver  in  the  shade 
Where  once  the  choir  sang  and  the  organ  played. 

Did  they  not  care  enough,  those  loving  ones, 
Who  came  with  passionate  tears  and  orisons, 
And  left  them  here  with  pageantry  of  grief? 
Eternal  sorrow,  was  it  then  so  brief 
That  they  forget?  Or  was  it  God  forgot 
W7hom  they  adored  in  this  forsaken  spot, 
Since  of  His  temple  there  remain  alone 
This  graveless  space  and  tumbled  piles  of  stone? 

[92] 


FROM  THE  MISSISSIPPI 


God  whom  they  called  Eternal  —  He  is  gone, 
And  grief  has  dried  between  the  night  and  dawn, 
Which  seemed  eternal.   Only  transient  grass, 
The  brooklet  never  still,  brown  birds  that  pass 
Like  winged  moods  across  the  blowing  grain, 
Shadows  and  clouds  and  sunlight  —  these  remain 
Where  all  things  else,  imagined  without  change 
Of  spirit  or  flesh,  have  vanished. 

Is  it  strange 

These  tombstones  sag  above  the  graves,  or  lie 
Heavy  with  fruitless  immortality? 
Look   here:   "Belove  .     .     .    wife    .     .    Act    .     .    Rest 

with  God," 

And  here:  "sister    .    .  peace    .    .    her  soul    .    .    '     The  sod 
Is  sunken  where  they  rest,  and  in  the  noons 
The  crickets  sing  among  the  grass. 

Our  boons 

Come  strangely  to  us.     .     .     .     It  is  better  so, 
Better  to  sleep  as  they  do,  and  lie  low 
Beneath  the  ragged  shadows  and  the  rain. 
Now  they  are  spared  the  infinite  slow  pain 
Of  stirring  life  above  them,  the  loud  bell, 
The  quavering  hymns,  the  words  of  heaven  and  hell. 
Them  shall  no  trampling  feet  disturb,  nor  cries 
Of  children  playing  make  them  lift  their  eyes, 
Vexed  that  the  living  take  so  little  care 
To  keep  the  fret  of  life  away  from  there. 
And  most  of  all,  the  futile  trick  of  flowers 
Laid  on  their  breasts  to  wither  with  the  hours 
And  force  the  dead  remember  and  awaken 
From  their  slow  sleep  —  this  trouble,  too,  is  taken. 
Now  beyond  God  or  man,  they  only  have 

[93] 


GARGOYLES 


To  keep  the  secure  quiet  of  the  grave, 

Here  where  the  rain  falls  and  the  tangled  leaves 

Of  birch  and  elm  trees  shade  them. 

Past  the  sheaves 

Beyond  the  road  the  distant  reapers  whir, 
A  grosbeak  startles  up,  a  grasshopper 
Sings  from  a  headstone  —  sounds  that  like  the  stream 
Are  drowsier  than  voices  in  a  dream. 
O  come  away  and  leave  them  where  they  lie 
Beneath  the  benediction  of  the  sky 
While  the  slow  sun  against  the  west  is  red  — 
There  are  none  happier  than  forgotten  dead. 


[94] 


GARGOYLES 
A  EUNICE 

I 
PRELUDE 

We  saw,  in  this  mad  city  where  we  dwell, 
My  dearest  dear  and  I,  a  beggar  dip, 
Passing  along  the  street,  and  catch  up  dust, 
And  press  it  to  his  rags,  and  to  his  lip. 
He  held  but  mire  blown  dry,  and  yet  he'd  tell 
Ten  pretty  names  for  it  without  disgust. 

A  hundred  people  passed  him  where  he  stood, 
Kissing  that  gathered  dust,  and  to  the  street 
Crying,  it  was  his  dear,  his  love,  his  soul ! 
Yet  no  one  stopped  that  doddering  man  to  greet  — 
Unconscious,  deaf,  as  he  were  stone  or  wood, 
They  hurried  by  to  some  more  personal  goal. 

My  love  and  I,  beholding  one  so  prize 

Most  filthy  treasure,  stared  at  him.   Then  each 

Turned  suddenly,  and  lo!   the  soul  had  fled 

Out  of  the  other's  face,  and  without  speech 

Our  hands  unclasped.   We  turned  our  stricken  eyes  • 

The  beggar,  sprawling  on  the  street,  was  dead. 


[95] 


GARGOYLES 


II 
FANTASIA 

The  city  where  you  live,  my  dear,  is  strange! 
There  corpses  hurry  by  in  motor  cars 
And  dead  men  walk  the  street  at  six  o'clock. 
Before  your  door  a  crowded  street  car  jars, 
Whose  stark  conductor  carefully  makes  change 
And  rings  up  carrion  fares  at  every  block. 

Along  the  streets  the  lighted  windows  show 
Here  pretty  cakes  for  filthy  hands  to  buy, 
There  ribbons  to  adorn  a  pallid  head. 
Gigantic  signs  are  swung  against  the  sky  — 
Ice,  cigarettes,  and  beer.   Does  no  one  know 
Your  city  is  the  city  of  the  dead? 

Why,  there  is  mold  upon  your  very  walk, 
And  bones  fall  down  along  the  curbstone.   Still 
That  strange  policeman  never  moves  his  eyes 
(His  blue  coat  smells  like  earth)  and  never  will. 
Queer,  that  the  dead  should  rise  each  morn  to  walk 
Such  rotting  squares  beneath  indifferent  skies ! 

And,  sweet,  this  very  letter  that  I  send 
A  staring  corpse  delivers  at  your  door; 
Cold,  ghoulish  fingers  twitter  at  your  arm 
To  guide  your  feet  across  the  ballroom  floor, 
And  you  yourself  —  O  God  of  Heaven  f orf end !  — 
The  mouth  that  has  kissed  mine  is  scarcely  warm! 

[96] 


GARGOYLES 


III 
NOCTURNE 

Under  the  moon  we  hear  the  stormy  lake 
Toss  like  a  man  in  sick-bed  endlessly, 
And  suddenly  we  turn  and  cling  and  kiss, 
Searching  some  passionate  door  to  endless  bliss 
Beneath  the  driven  stars,  above  the  sea, 
Beyond  the  death-like  town  where  none  awake. 

We  lean  against  the  gale.   With  feverish  lips 
Our  spirits  climb  the  crags  and  towers  of  night, 
Hunting  behind  the  wind  some  windless  grot, 
Some  city  in  the  sea  that  trembles  not, 
Or  in  the  rack  of  driven  cloud  and  light 
Some  clock  behind  the  stars  that  never  slips. 

And  O  the  senseless  way  w^e  seek  for  these! 
You  clasp  me  in  your  arms,  your  face  is  blind, 
Uplifted  to  my  mad  and  thirsty  mouth ! 
Eternity  we  somehow  seek  in  youth, 
Youth  that  is  less  than  foam  or  cloud  or  wind, 
Beneath  the  stars,  beside  the  tumbling  seas ! 


97 


GARGOYLES 


IV 
IMMORTALITY 

Eunice,  when  this  wild  music  that  we  hear 

Is  silent,  and  the  fever  and  the  passion, 

The  rich  mouth  shaping  to  a  lover's  kiss, 

The  bosom  and  the  arms  of  you,  the  fear 

Of  loss,  the  hope  of  some  dim,  ultimate  bliss  — 

When  all  this  arch  is  dust  which  now  we  fashion, 

And  you  are  grass  upspringing  from  a  grave, 
And  I  in  some  far  corner  of  the  world 
Enrich  the  earth  by  one  more  lover's  heart, 
They  will  not  know  the  good  we  worked  to  save, 
They  will  not  care  what  stars  we  saw,  or  start 
Because  upon  my  breast  your  hand  is  curled ! 

Instead,  the  Tribune  on  its  thirteenth  page, 
In  little  type,  along  with  stocks  and  such, 
(And  marriages)  will  list  your  name  and  mine, 
And  Christian  Shimultowski's  name  and  age, 
And  Mamie  Kaeppler's,  dead  at  forty-nine, 
Beloved  wife  of  John,  who  mourns  her  much. 


98] 


GARGOYLES 


GROTESQUE 

It  is  most  odd  to  see  a  skeleton  eat, 
Jingling  the  knife  and  fork  against  its  teeth! 
It  is  most  odd  to  see  a  skeleton  shed 
An  opera  cloak,  and  carefully  unsheathe 
Its  arms  of  snowy  gloves,  and  take  its  seat, 
A  fluffy  hat  upon  its  grinning  head. 

The  Blackstone  dining  room  is  soft  and  pink, 
The  wine  is  excellent,  the  music  good. 
You  would  not  think  to  see  a  skeleton  there! 
Yet  Thursday  night  across  our  dainty  food 
I  sat  with  one  at  table.   Dear,  don't  shrink. 
This  terrapin  is  really  very  fair. 


VI 

THEME  AND  VARIATIONS 

I  do  recall  the  feet  of  many  lovers 
Trod  the  same  roses  into  dust  as  we, 
And  in  the  gloom  which  round  this  city  hovers 
They  feverishly  kissed  like  you  and  me, 
And  passed  to  dissolution  and  to  dust, 
Even,  O  my  dearest  heart,  even  as  we  must! 
[99] 


GARGOYLES 


I  do  recall  the  shadow-wandering  faces 

Of  poets  in  the  twilight  ere  I  came: 

They  walk  behind  the  night  with  velvet  paces, 

Upon  the  streets  their  heads  are  pale  with  flame, 

Each  one  alone,  apart,  and  desolate, 

Oblivious  music  fingered  on  by  fate. 

I  do  recall  the  maidens  and  the  laughter, 
Red  lips  we  trample  in  the  street's  much  dust, 
Eyelids  and  bosoms  that  men  hungered  after, 
And  bodies  that  were  made  for  love  and  lust  — 
A  thousand  years  of  kisses  pave  the  street, 
Beloved,  underneath  your  careless  feet ! 

O  heart!  The  night  is  full  of  ghosts  and  pity! 
Shadows,  old  tears,  embraces  stir  the  trees, 
And  souls  that  wandered  this  indifferent  city 
When  time  was  young  are  kissing  in  the  breeze  — 
Despite  the  asseveration  of  your  face, 
The  death  of  lovers  is  so  commonplace ! 


VII 
FRESCO 

Behold  a  student  in  a  little  room 

(The  same  being  I)  who  pores  upon  a  book. 

Outside,  the  April  sky  is  like  a  child, 

And  dandelions  gleam,  and  winds  are  mild, 

But  here  at  college  is  a  crazy  nook 

By  spring  forgot,  the  world  being  all  a-bloom! 

[100] 


GARGOYLES 


Through  owl-like  spectacles  the  student  reads 
(Myself  being  he).   That  book  he  deems  as  gold 
Which  deals  with  buried  kings  and  lovers  dead, 
For  tiptoeing,  they  cluster  round  his  head, 
Thin  majesties  with  crowns  of  phantom  gold, 
And  lovely  lads  for  whom  the  world  yet  bleeds, 

What  need  has  he  of  spring  who  holds  in  fee 
Imperial  Caesars,  kings  with  brows  anoint, 
Ladies  that  were  great  lovers  long  ago?  .  .  . 
Only  the  corners  of  his  chamber  show 
Row  after  row  of  ghastly  hands  which  point, 
And  shadowy  lips  that  grin  sardonically. 


VIII 
MOTTO 

Our  city  has  a  playhouse  where  we  go 

And  sit  in  darkness,  clasping  hands,  and  hark; 

The  curtain  never  rises  while  we  stay, 

But  on  its  front  two  flickering  lanterns  play 

Sometimes  in  that  funereal  gloom  and  lo! 

Touching,  they  vanish  and  the  house  is  dark. 


101  ] 


GARGOYLES 


IX 
HAMLET 

Odd,  is  it  not?   The  sacred  hand  I  kiss, 

So  curiously  formed  with  skin  and  joint, 

Whose  flesh  love's  chrism,  whose  touch  love's  charms  anoint, 

In  nothing  differs  from  more  rotten  flesh; 

And  yet  with  promise  of  eternal  bliss 

Mere  carrion  finger-tips  a  soul  enmesh! 

A  soul,  or  what  the  flow  of  chemic  change 
In  this  queer  net  of  unconsidered  cells, 
As  soul  to  blind,  peculiar  atoms  tells, 
Whose  home  is  brain,  whose  motion  is  the  me! 
Odd  —  but  as  lover  you  are  still  more  strange, 
And  you  are  strangest  as  eternity ! 

O  God!   that  mere  mortality  should  take 
Presumption  from  the  touch  of  lover's  hands; 
Or  dead  men  think  corruption  ever  stands 
Because  two  hands  are  love's  galvanic  poles; 
That  law  or  dream  or  custom  so  mistake 
And  curiously  tangle  us  with  souls ! 


[102] 


GARGOYLES 


X 

ARABESQUE 

In  love,  men  want  Byronic  brows  of  night, 
They  scale  no  stars,  nor  like  Hernani  die; 
Romantic  is  proclaimed  a  childish  lie, 
And  even  in  opera,  Werther's  out  of  date, 
The  breed  of  lovers,  haply,  is  not  great? 
Or  was  the  immortal  flame  mere  candle  light? 

I  am,  I  swear,  chin-deep  in  love  with  you, 

Yet  have  not  sighed  nor  cursed,  and  neither  recks 

This  mere  propinquity  of  youth  and  sex 

A  portent  of  our  immortality! 

What  is  this  thing  called  love  for  which  men  die? 

Or  do  the  liars  treat  the  false  as  true? 

Love  sits  not  in  your  lips,  your  face,  your  eyes  — 

Your  body  is  the  haunt  of  sex  and  time! 

If  either  brags  heroic  prose  or  rhyme, 

The  other  smiles.    (We  moderns  live  for  taste! 

We  can  not  bound  all  heaven  in  a  waist, 

Or  leap  upon  a  kiss  to  Paradise!) 

Young  love  is  old,  old  love  was  spent  in  vain 
Down  every  age  that  found  its  women  fair. 
For  us,  a  satyr  grins  beside  you  there, 
Or  else  the  cloth  a  skeleton  bedecks. 
My  dear,  we  lack  the  candor  that  is  sex, 
And  know  too  much  to  be  insanely  sane! 
[103] 


GARGOYLES 


XI 
FUGUE  SOLONELLE 

Well,  if  men  lied  concerning  love  till  now, 

Admit,  at  least,  she  has  a  pretty  waist, 

And  even  though  she  flirt,  her  clothes  are  chaste,  — 

There's  beauty  in  her!  Then  no  matter  how; 

Instead  of  women,  if  men  females  take, 

Still  note  the  pleasant  friends  that  females  make. 

Wise  words !   We  are  not  souls  who  taste  the  stars 

Upon  the  blur  and  tumult  of  a  kiss : 

There  is  a  purpose  in  our  sexual  bliss. 

Time,  like  a  huge  and  hostile  engine,  jars 

The  seven  planets  even  as  we  wed, 

And  corpse-like  do  we  creep  to  marriage-bed. 

Yet,  nonetheless,  a  flash  ere  death  appears, 
The  mighty  wheels  of  life  have  once  revolved, 
Anew  the  dying  planet  is  absolved 
From  stoppage  with  the  throbbing  of  the  years.     . 
Wise  words !   Since  vast  mechanic  wheels  are  cased 
Within  those  lovely  eyes,  that  modest  waist! 


[104[ 


GARGOYLES 


XII 
INTERLUDE 

At  Miller  now  the  plums  are  blossoming 
Upon  the  hills  in  May,  and  in  the  hollows 
Arbutus  shyly  blows.   The  skeleton  dunes 
Whose  ribs  all  winter  made  fantastic  tunes 
Feather  with  delicate  green.   I  saw  two  swallows 
Swooping  above  the  sands  like  very  spring. 

Last  March  the  lake  had  on  a  belt  of  snow 
White  in  the  winter  sun,  an  icy  ring 
Where  now  is  all  the  blue  of  Helen's  eyes. 
Softly  the  foam  fleets  rise  and  fall  and  rise 
Against  the  yellow  sands  with  murmuring, 
Speaking  some  secret  matter  as  they  flow. 

In  May,  I  think,  the  resurrection  hour 

Comes  here  upon  the  dunes !  These  are  not  hills 

Of  dust  and  sand.   They  are  the  mingling  lips 

Of  lovers  who  were  lost  on  many  ships, 

And  every  grain  of  sand  that  downward  spills 

Was  once  a  kiss  and  soon  will  be  a  flower. 


105] 


GARGOYLES 


XIII 
DIALECTICS 

I  blame  you  for  your  virtue  and  my  shame, 
I  blame  you  for  the  good  you  forced  me  to ! 
Alas !  what  virtue  is  in  being  you, 
If  you,  renunciate,  are  as  others  are, 
A  tedious  candle  and  no  lawless  star, 
A  mere  example  for  the  good  to  name? 

Men  say  you  were  heroic,  loving  me, 

Yet,  for  your  conscience,  putting  passion  by; 

Ah,  know  their  praises  curse  you  more  than  I, 

For  shifty  virtue  ever  causes  ill, 

And  devils  mask  men's  cowardice  as  will, 

And  lust  in  hell  is  named  sobriety. 

I  say,  your  welfare  is  imperilled  still; 

The  torment  that  I  have,  I  say,  is  you; 

I  say,  the  expectancy  you  led  me  to 

Will  damn  you  when  your  moderation's  dead; 

My  ruin  falls  upon  a  saintly  head, 

And  you  are  lost  for  good,  as  I,  for  ill ! 


[106] 


GARGOYLES 


XIV 
MARCHE 

It  is  not  God's  desire  to  cheat  us  so: 
Himself  removes  from  brightness  into  shade 
According  to  the  custom  He  has  made 
Unwittingly.   Himself  He  can  not  mend. 
Helpless,  He  flows  toward  some  determined  end 
As  moons  arise  or  waters  ebb  and  flow. 

Be  just  and  do  not  blame  Him.   Had  He  known, 

I  think  He  would  have  builded  otherwise, 

Himself  being  gentle.   When  a  lover  dies 

He  grieves  and  would  not  have  it.   He  is  spun 

Round  a  machine  whose  flywheel  is  the  sun, 

Whose  bolts  are  stars,  whose  humming  drowns  His  moan. 

And  though  we  sat  together  on  the  heights, 
And  kissed  amid  the  hollows  of  the  hills, 
Let's  smile  and  bravely  part  before  His  mills 
Shall  turn  again.   So  shall  we  spare  Him  pain, 
And  He  will  be  a  little  glad  and  gain 
Some  courage  to  endure  His  lonely  nights. 


[107] 


GARGOYLES 


XV 
ALLEGORY 

There  is  a  temple  in  our  mystic  city 
Where  mumbling  masks  perpetually  come. 
The  mighty  gates  are  brass.    Two  women  stand, 
Two  brazen  figures,  veiled  and  vast  and  dumb, 
Beside  the  doors  like  sentinels  on  each  hand, 
And  one  is  Fear,  and  one  —  alas!  —  is  Pity. 

Within  those  speechless  courts,  that  awful  portal, 

The  light  of  sun  or  star  is  never  known : 

Dim  pillars  rise  and  some  strange  altar  fire 

Burns  gem-like  in  the  dark  where  shadows  moan, 

And  hollow  echoes  as  of  bells  are  dire, 

And  mockery  flouts  the  path  of  every  mortal. 

There,  from  the  velvet  walls  drip  down  confusion, 
Mixings  of  soul  and  sense,  of  shadow  and  sound 
Which  on  the  spirit  fall  like  blood  and  rain. 
I  think  the  place  is  some  enchanted  ground 
Where  kneeling  masks  implore  eternal  pain 
Of  their  mad  god  whose  name  is  Disillusion ! 

My  soul,  my  love  and  I  came  here  one  day, 
And  wondered  at  the  walls,  the  fire,  the  floors, 
The  drip  of  silence  and  the  lisping  dead, 
And  all  we  knelt  by  vague,  mysterious  doors  — 
Then  horror  fell  upon  us  and  we  fled, 
My  love  and  I.   My  soul  remained  to  pray. 
[108] 


SfAVIK-HOWUM>PlM 

871  Frtnklm  Su 
VOJTOM 


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